We used tick abundance data from public health agencies and academic institutions across the Northeastern US to create a dataset of I. scapularis, or blacklegged tick, abundance across the Northeast. Tick surveillance was conducted with a variety of methods and for different lengths of time in five northeastern states during the period of 1981-2021. This dataset presents mean annual tick abundance in the counties of these states.

We analyzed this dataset to explore the impacts of climate and land cover on changes in tick abundance. Specifically, we assessed the effects of climate and land cover variables that are known to have strong impacts on the life cycle of the blacklegged tick and the presence of wildlife that ticks feed on. We find a significant effect of climate and land cover on tick populations, and demonstrate methods that could be applied to similarly spread diseases.