Abstract
Lyme disease is the most commonly reported vector-borne illness in the United States. Lyme disease occurrence is highly seasonal and the annual springtime onset of cases is modulated by meteorological conditions in preceding months. A meteorological-based empirical model for Lyme disease onset week in the United States is driven with downscaled simulations from five global climate models and four greenhouse gas emissions scenarios to project the impacts of 21st century climate change on the annual onset week of Lyme disease. Projections are made individually and collectively for the 12 eastern States where >90% of cases occur. The national average annual onset week of Lyme disease is projected to become 0.4–0.5 weeks earlier for 2025–2040 (p<0.05), and 0.7–1.9 weeks earlier for 2065–2080 (p<0.01), with the largest shifts for scenarios with the highest greenhouse gas emissions. The more southerly mid-Atlantic States exhibit larger shifts (1.0–3.5 weeks) compared to the Northeastern and upper Midwestern States (0.2–2.3 weeks) by 2065–2080. Winter and spring temperature increases primarily cause the earlier onset. Greater spring precipitation and changes in humidity partially counteract the temperature effects. The model does not account for the possibility that abrupt shifts in the life cycle of Ixodes scapularis, the primary vector of the Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi in the eastern United States, may alter the disease transmission cycle in unforeseen ways. The results suggest 21st century climate change will make environmental conditions suitable for earlier annual onset of Lyme disease cases in the United States with possible implications for the timing of public health interventions.
Highlights
Lyme disease is a multisystem tick-borne bacterial zoonosis that is endemic in parts of North America, Europe and Asia
Where LOW is Lyme Onset Week, GDDW20 is the cumulative growing degree days from week 1 to week 20, SDM5 is the mean saturation deficit in mmHg in the 5 weeks before the onset week, PRCPAW8 is the cumulative rainfall in mm from week 8 through the onset week, and DIST is distance in decimal degrees to the Atlantic Ocean coastline from the weighted mean center of each State's total Lyme disease cases
The smallest changes by the late 21st century are for the RCP2.6 scenario and the largest are for RCP8.5
Summary
Lyme disease is a multisystem tick-borne bacterial zoonosis that is endemic in parts of North America, Europe and Asia. At local scales host community structure plays a large role in determining the density of infected nymphs (Mather et al, 1989; Ostfeld et al, 2006), at regional scales, temperature, humidity and precipitation are robust predictors of spatial and temporal distributions of I. scapularis (Brownstein et al, 2003; Diuk-Wasser et al, 2006, 2010; Estrada-Pena, 2002) These variables have been associated with the geographical and temporal distributions of human cases of Lyme disease in the United States (Ashley and Meentemeyer, 2004; McCabe and Bunnell, 2004; Moore et al, 2014; Ogden et al, 2014; Subak, 2003; Tran and Waller, 2013). Understanding how meteorology impacts the seasonality of Lyme disease case occurrence can aid in targeting limited prevention resources and may shed light on how climate change could affect the seasonal occurrence of the disease (Gray, 2008)
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