Our podcast follows the story of Hershey, a fictional dog infected with ticks and as a result the tick borne illness Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF). RMS can only be transmitted to animals and humans via an infected tick's bite, but in the podcast Hershey acts as a vector for the disease spreading it to other dogs and people impacting communities at the US-Mexico border, Arizona, and Los Angeles. Our podcast aims to shed a light onto this lesser known tick borne illness to highlight exactly what the disease can entail, how it affects marginalized communities, intersects both canine and humanhealth, is influenced by changes to our Earth's climate, and what current steps and treatments exist to help mitigate its impact. We hope. that you learn something new about RMSF as well as a greater understanding for how all of our health from ticks to dogs to humans and th eEarth's is interconnected.

These podcast episodes were created by members of the 2024 Spring Capstone course in the Human Biology and Society major at UCLA's Institute for Society and Genetics (https://socgen.ucla.edu/). The faculty sponsor is Christopher Kelty. For questions or concerns email ckelty@ucla.edu. For more information about any of these diseases please consult the US Centers for Disease Control (https://www.cdc.gov/) .