A new review <Link> emphasizes that tick and tick-borne disease control in the United States now requires a coordinated One Health strategy that accounts for changing tick distributions, wildlife and domestic animal hosts, environmental conditions and human exposure patterns. Kristen Coppock Crossley, MA, shares the rationales in this article.
The expanding range of established vectors* and the emergence of H. longicornis reinforce the need for veterinarians to regularly update tick risk assessments. Effective management should integrate regional vector awareness, patient-specific exposure history, judicious diagnostics, consistent preventives, environmental control and client education.
Source: DVM 360, June 25, 2026. Link. A One Health approach is not an abstract public health concept in this setting. It is the framework veterinary teams need to connect canine, feline, equine, livestock, wildlife, environmental, and human risk—and to intervene before tick-borne disease becomes a clinical diagnosis.
Tick prevention and tick-borne disease recognition can no longer rely on static geographic assumptions. “
NOTE: The paper organized major tick-borne disease threats into four clinically important groups: Lyme disease and hard tick relapsing fever, spotted fever rickettsioses, babesiosis and anaplasmosis/ehrlichiosis. Tick species of highest relevance to One Health practitioners include: Ixodes scapularis, Ixodes pacificus, Dermacentor variabilis, Dermacentor andersoni, Amblyomma americanum, Amblyomma maculatum, Rhipicephalus sanguineus sensu lato and the invasive Haemaphysalis longicornis.
Image: Link.
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