Table 3.

Eight types of study methodologies defined in this review

Type of study	Definition (example)
Cluster analysis	Any type of cluster analysis was used, including SatScan cluster analysis, kernel density hotspot modeling, or similar, e.g. (15).
Ecological niche modeling	A species distribution modeling (SDM) algorithm was applied to point data of occurrences of ticks or tick-borne disease, and the resulting map was a function of environmental drivers of geographic distributions.
Endemicity mapping	Mapping the extent of ticks or tick-borne disease occurrence, based on a systematic or manual review of historical or published data and expert opinion, typically expressed with administrative boundaries or zones of suspected risk.
Genetic mapping	Maps which included locations of phylogenetic descriptions—e.g., a pie chart of strain type frequency at a given location.
Point data	Spatial data points of information (e.g., the incidence of human cases, presence or absence of vectors), presented on a map in a format accessible for reuse through digitization.
Prevalence mapping	Maps of tick-borne disease prevalence, in humans or other hosts, visualized using raw (unaltered and unmodeled) data.
Prevalence modeling	Maps are generated as predicted functions of prevalence through some sort of quantitative modeling.
Risk mapping	Projection of a modeled output (such as linear regression model output) onto a continuous geographic area or region, intended to communicate the geographic extent and intensity of transmission risk.