How To Help

People often look for ways to help educate about Lyme disease but do not know how to begin. If you are working on your own, you can check for support groups in your state or region and contact them to ask how you can help with their efforts.  Or you can work on your own by reaching out to your local officials first, who may often be your neighbors or parents of your children’s friends. Talk to them about Lyme and tick-borne diseases. Share simple information with them first, how Lyme has affected your family, provide pamphlets and information about how widespread it is in your community.  

Go to your town council/committee meetings and share your concerns publicly. Talk to them about how children are at the highest risk. Perhaps they might host a Lyme seminar, or use environmental measures to control ticks on public property, or post public property with signs warning about ticks. Do the same at your local board of education meetings, and county government meetings. Explain how debilitating the disease is and that it also has a high financial cost to the patient/family and to society.

You may also try to educate state officials but that may be harder to do on your own. Enlist your friends and family, the local PTA, Rotary, or Elks and ask them to support your efforts.

LDA has developed a list of low cost recommendations to use at the state level. Agency titles may differ from state to state.