The LDASEPA ran a post card mail survey of Pocopson Township, Chester County, PA to estimate the current and past presence of Lyme disease in the general population.

The purposes are to use this pilot program to set approximate limits on the prevalence of Lyme disease and support a future effort to run a wide area scientific survey that would determine for our region the full impact that tick-borne diseases have had on the population as a whole.

We believe the CDC surveillance system vastly underestimates the true incidence of Lyme disease, beyond even the ten-fold under reporting the CDC says is likely. Our survey supported this notion.

Summary: 40% of all 848 residential households responded to the survey, representing 978 individuals who constitute ~30% of the entire township population. 47% of households had one or more individuals who currently have Lyme disease or had it in the past. Of the 948 individuals responding, 21% currently have Lyme disease or had it in the past. These returns surely indicate an epidemic of Lyme disease. There is good reason to think that these results do represent the entire Southeastern Pennsylvania region.

Preliminary Report  Survey Card front   Survey Card back (all pdf files)