With tick bite-related hospitalizations reaching record numbers, a new online tool allows residents to monitor their town's risk for ticks and tick-borne illnesses.
In April, the CDC reported that tick-related emergency room visits were at their highest level in a decade.
TickZone gives users the ability to learn how at-risk they are for tick bites, what kind of ticks are common in the area, what diseases they may carry, and how to best prevent getting bitten.
Related: Tick Concerns Prompt Morris County Parents To Take Action
The online tool, created by Nathan Burnett, analyzes several factors and gives each town a score between 0 and 100 for tick risk. Updated each morning, each score is labeled Low (0-33), Moderate (34-66), or High (67 to 100).
The scores are calculated using these five signals:
Burnett, who grew up in the Northeast, says ticks had always been "just part of life." It was when his brother contracted Lyme disease that things changed.
"He was lucky. We caught it early and antibiotics cleared it, but a lot of families are not that lucky, and the difference almost always comes down to awareness. That stuck with me," Burnett told Patch. "The frustrating part is that tick risk is intensely local; it can change street to street and week to week, and yet most people have no way to know when it is spiking where they live.
"I built TickZone to close that gap, a simple daily read on the risk in your own town, so people can take a few easy precautions before a bite instead of finding out the hard way," he continued. "If it helps one family catch something early the way mine did, it is worth it."
In addition to analyzing tick risks, TickZone also provides resources for people to learn about tick and insect prevention services in their area.
The New Jersey county with the most glaring tick risk is Hunterdon County, which includes the top ten highest scoring towns in the state, with each town earning a score in the 90s.
See a county breakdown of the most risky tick towns in each Garden State county. Click on each town to learn more (data collected from Thursday, July 9):
Atlantic County
Bergen County
Burlington County
Camden County
Cape May County
Cumberland County
Essex County
Gloucester County
Hudson County
Hunterdon County
Mercer County
Middlesex County
Monmouth County
Morris County
Ocean County
Passaic County
Salem County
Somerset County
Sussex County
Union County
Warren County
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TickZone provides free tick forecasts daily for more than 12,000 towns across 26 states, including 564 in New Jersey. Click here to learn more about the tool.
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