Lyme disease has seen significant expansion in the United States over the last 15 years, and as a result, it has become a growing national issue.

Private insurance claim lines for Lyme disease diagnosis increased 357 percent in rural areas and 65 percent in cities between 2007 and 2021.

FAIR Health has now developed an infographic depicting these and other facts regarding this tick-borne bacterial illness. The nationwide, independent organization conducted its 15-year research of Lyme illness using its database of over 36 billion privately billed healthcare claims; this analysis expands on a previous FAIR Health infographic that investigated 10 years of Lyme disease data.

Urban and Rural Differences

The infographic shows how the number of people with Lyme disease is different in rural and urban areas.

Lyme disease diagnoses grew nationwide between 2016 and 2021, peaking in June and July of each year, with diagnoses increasing by 60% in rural areas and by 19% in urban areas.

Rural locations, on average, had a higher percentage of claim lines including Lyme disease diagnosis than metropolitan areas throughout these summer months. There was a noticeable difference between urban and rural claim lines for Lyme illness between November and April.

Geographical Spread

From highest to lowest, New Jersey, Connecticut, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont had the most claim lines in 2017 with Lyme disease diagnoses as a percentage of all diagnoses in the state.

Since Lyme disease has usually been found in the Northeast and upper Midwest, the fact that North Carolina had the third highest number of Lyme disease claim lines in 2017 suggested that the disease had spread to a new area. However, North Carolina was no longer on the list by 2021.

From highest to lowest, the leading states in 2021 were New Jersey, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. In 2021, Maine, which had not previously been among the top five states for Lyme disease claim lines, moved up to third place, indicating a rising prevalence of the tick-borne disease in the state.

Vermont jumped ahead of Connecticut to claim the number two spot, while Connecticut fell to claim the fifth spot.

Later Diagnoses

Despite the fact that Lyme disease can be treated with medications, some Lyme patients subsequently experience illnesses with chronic symptoms like fatigue, joint and muscle pain, and cognitive problems. Such symptoms have been associated with post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, which is also known as chronic Lyme.

To find later diagnoses linked to Lyme disease, FAIR Health looked at a statistically significant group of people in its private insurance claims database from 2017 to 2021 and compared how common certain diagnoses were among Lyme disease patients to how common they were among all patients in the group.

Analysis revealed that Lyme patients had higher rates of diagnoses like malaise, fatigue, and soft tissue-related problems than the general patient group. Patients with Lyme disease were generally more likely than the population as a whole to have these ostensibly related diseases across all age groups.

“Lyme disease, according to FAIR Health President Robin Gelburd, “remains a growing public health concern. FAIR Health will continue to use its repository of claims data to provide actionable and relevant insights to healthcare stakeholders seeking to better understand the ongoing rise of Lyme disease cases.”

Image Credit: Getty

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