Using a Community Engagement Approach to Encourage Lyme Disease Risk Mitigation

Lyme Borreliosis, also known as Lyme disease, is the most common tick-borne disease in Northern Europe. Communities typically affected include forestry workers, gamekeepers, land and estate managers, and their employees. People can also be exposed to ticks, and therefore Lyme disease, through more ‘everyday’ and leisure-based activities, such as dog walking or gardening.

The research presented aimed to test ways of gathering local knowledge on outdoor behaviours, as well as exploring the awareness of ticks and Lyme disease in the Scottish Highlands. In was anticipated that this information could be used to co-design risk mitigation strategies. A mixed methods approach was designed and implemented to include community engagement workshops, questionnaires and interviews.

This presentation reports on the methods used, the engagement levels achieved, and insight into how a community-based approach was successful in facilitating the development of locally appropriate risk mitigation strategy for rural communities.