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Video Q&A ViewAttendees 2

Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology

Section Symposium

Advances, Strategies and Challenges to Tick Control On-Demand Presentations

The implementation of behavioral change techniques through a smartphone application to promote personal protective behaviors against tick-borne diseases

On-Demand
On-Demand
Tick-borne diseases pose a growing threat to public health in the United States, doubling their incidence between 2004-2016. Without a human vaccine or community-based tick management, tick-borne disease prevention relies on personal protective behaviors during outdoor activities and interventions in peridomestic settings. Herein, we leveraged a novel smartphone application – The Tick App – to conduct a pilot intervention to promote engagement in preventative behaviors through the implementation on Behavioral Change Techniques (BCT). The BCT was implemented in the Tick App in April 2020 through August 2021, as rotating pop-up messages displayed on the home screen each time the user opened the application. Users were assigned randomly 1:1 to “control” and “treatment”. Users in the “control” group received messages reminding them to check for ticks, while those in the “treatment” group receive additional messages promoting the use of tick repellent and showering for after being outdoors. We evaluated the effects of the BCT on self-reported use of preventative messages and tick encounters measured longitudinally through short daily e-surveys in the app. The Tick App provided as with the unique opportunity to deploy an BCT intervention in a time-efficient manner in a broad geographic area, allowing us to assess the cumulative effects of health promoting messages across different settings. Ultimately, this information will be valuable for adapting risk reduction interventions in different populations and engage the general public in tick prevention across the United States.