Evidence-Based Health Promotion Programmes And Tools To Prevent Tick Bites And Lyme Borreliosis

Despite improvements in prevention, diagnosis and treatment, Lyme borreliosis (LB) is still the most common tick-borne infection in Europe and North America. As long as there are no effective measures to control tick populations in nature and there is no vaccine, we have to primarily rely on information provision and communication to prevent tick bites and LB. Tick and LB prevention programmes are aimed at increasing the public's knowledge of ticks, tick bites and LB, influencing people's perception, and stressing the positive effect of preventive measures. Remarkably, the number of studies aiming at the improvement of education and communication interventions to prevent tick bites and LB is very limited. Recently, four newly developed interventions, a movie, a leaflet, an online educational video game and a mobile app were developed, implemented and evaluated on social-cognitive variables associated with the intention to take measures to prevent ticks and LB and the preventive behaviour of the general public and schoolchildren in the Netherlands. The effects of these tools were comparable: people appreciated the tools, they learn short-term from it and some of the tools motivate them to check their skin on ticks more frequently. Since none of the tools was able to reach a long-term effect, it is important to keep going the attention for education continuously.