Tick-borne diseases are already present within Europe and may be widespread (Lyme borreliosis) or focal (tick-borne encephalitis) depending upon the precise interactions between the environment, parasite, tick and vertebrate hosts. Environmental factors, public health activities and recent changes in the economic, social and political environments of Europe have resulted in many different patterns of tick-borne diseases across the continent.

The general objectives of EDEN-TBD is to identify which socio-economical and eco-environmental factors (changes in public health activities, in human behaviour/agriculture, and contact with tick-infested habitats, in climate or landscape) govern the currently observed upsurge of tick-borne diseases in Europe. By quantifying the present relationship between tick abundance and seasonal dynamics, host availability and infection prevalence in tick populations with pathogenic agents, epidemiological models of TBD risk driven by landscape and climate changes as well as socio-economical changes will be developed.