In July, University of Missouri Extension launched a new survey — asking Missourians what they know and don't know about alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to red meat and other mammalian products that's contracted through the bite of the lone star tick.
KBIA's Rebecca Smith recently spoke with Rachel O'Halloran with MU Extension about the survey and how they hope to use the responses to develop new programming to educate and serve Missourians.
She said the survey is expected to stay open for several more weeks and they hope to launch their first materials and programs about the condition this fall.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Rebecca Smith: Take me back a little bit and tell me the story of how you got interested in ticks in general, and alpha gal more specifically?
Rachel O'Halloran: Absolutely. So, like many things that we do here with extension, it came from community interest and community questions.
So, probably about three going on four years ago, we started getting the buzz from our community members about alpha-gal syndrome and questions about basic things like modifying recipes, when considering the food allergen of alpha galactose in red meat sources.
And so, over the past two years or so, we've started to collect and work in consolidated effort, putting together the start of resources and guide sheets – focusing in our strength areas of nutrition and recipes.
We're still getting feedback from Missourians as to what they need around this emerging issue, so that we can put our time and resources to building programs that are going to serve Missourians.
Rebecca Smith: Yeah. So tell me a little bit about the survey. How was it developed? How is it going to be utilized? How long are you guys going to be collecting responses?
Rachel O'Halloran: So, the survey was a good idea borrowed from the University of Kansas. They had done a slightly different version with their state.
Us in Missouri, based on our previous questions and conversations with communities, knew that this was also impacting people's diet behaviors, food decisions, and we have anecdotally started to hear about it also impacting individuals feelings of isolation or connection in their communities, and just the stress that comes with new diagnosis and health condition management.
So, we've been hearing all these things anecdotally. We wanted to ask Missourians, in a more consolidated way, how these factors were affecting them or not, and where they wanted us to set our priority as we designed programs, and how they wanted to interact with them.
Those are some of the things we're hoping to learn from our Missouri community members so that we can put together programs that will be relevant, research-based and responsive to their needs.
Rebecca Smith: Yeah, do you have any idea, at this point, like, how many responses you've gotten?
Rachel O'Halloran: Yeah, as of today, I have just shy of 2,000 responses, which is covering most of Missouri.
We could use additional feedback from northern Missouri, as well as Southeast Missouri, but we are very interested in hearing from individuals with alpha gal or individuals without alpha gal, and what their familiarity is with the condition, so that we can be very, very intentional as we go about our next steps.
Rebecca Smith: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, again, and I hope we talk again soon.
Rachel O'Halloran: Yeah, absolutely.
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