Lyme Disease By County

July 24th, 2015
lyme, map
Yesterday people were excited about a map that was supposed to show risk of catching Lyme by county. Unfortunately, it actually measured something complex but correlated, the year in which the county was first designated "high risk". This is interesting, but I wanted the map I'd hoped to find: annual per-capita cases of Lyme. So I made it:


(zoomable svg)

color annual risk
< 0.002%
< 0.004%
< 0.009%
< 0.017%
< 0.034%
< 0.068%
< 0.137%
< 0.274%
< 0.548%
(Colors chosen with Color Brewer.)

The map is colored by annual "confirmed cases" as reported by the CDC (csv) divided by the Census estimate of the 2012 population (csv) with mild weighting for recency. This isn't quite right, since population hasn't stayed constant over the last 20 years, but it should be pretty close.

If you want to know what the incidence is in a particular county, you can look it up in lyme_risk_by_county.csv.

Code is on github.

(This 2009 flowing data post was very useful.)

Referenced in: Peekskill Lyme Incidence

Comment via: google plus, facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Three cheers for the tomboy chaser

Three cheers for the tomboy chaser!

via Thing of Things January 30, 2026

2025-26 New Year review

This is an annual post reviewing the last year and setting intentions for next year. I look over different life areas (work, health, parenting, effectiveness, etc) and analyze my life tracking data. Highlights include a minimal group house, the usefulness…

via Victoria Krakovna January 19, 2026

Why I Don't Think My Braces Were Worth It

A couple weeks ago, I got my braces off. I kind of wish I had never had them, though. When I was younger, two of my teeth were sticking out, and they looked kind of funny. I thought that my teeth were just fine, and I didn't want to get braces. But s…

via Anna Wise's Blog Posts January 3, 2026

more     (via openring)