Climate Change in New England:
The Implications for a Vector-Borne Disease

Lindsey Wong
Bachelors of Science in Environmental Science
May 2003

Recent studies indicate that changing climate trends in New England will increase the possibility of the introduction of new infectious disease vectors or trigger an increase in current vector populations. Local vector-borne diseases, primarily Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi, could become a more serious health problem if conditions become more favorable for transmission of the spirochete. Previous research has shown that the population size of the deer tick, Lyme disease vector (Ixodes scapularis), is sensitive to the likely shifts in temperature and precipitation. If these variables change in the Northeast region where Lyme borreliosis is endemic, we can expect the tick population to also change and predict changes in disease frequency and distributions. I examined fifty-four years of monthly temperature and precipitation data collected at sixteen stations from southern New England to the Canadian border. I found significant changes in mean temperature, mean minimum temperature, and total precipitation (P < 0.05). A 0.8º C increase in the average winter temperature and a 0.4º C increase in the average summer temperature were observed in a fifty-year interval. Increasing temperatures and summer rains, and decreasing winter precipitation, as found in this study, could promote a major rise in the Ixodes population thereby prompting a jump in Lyme disease incidence among the human population.