Even though I have my own concern about ticks and so on, I am also aware that if we listened to all the things that could happen to us, or what we could catch, we might never leave the house! When I was young and in my teens I was blissfully unaware of most dangers. Falling out of trees for example! Near to where we lived there was a large wood with lots of slender trees. Our 'thing' was to shin up as high as we could and try to bend the tree with our body weight and then grab and move onto the next tree and so on. I once did about 50yds, I was totally exhausted with the effort but it was great fun. I fell out of the trees, got cuts and bruises galore so many times, as did all my mates, it was what we did. I cannot remember ever being told by mum and dad about 'danger', certainly not from people anyway, perhaps they did, but would I have listened anyway?
I saw the same thing done on the film 'Hidden Tiger, Crouching Dragon' years later!
So for me, has 'real' danger from ticks and everything else increased since I was young? I have been bitten by this and that, I just try to accept it as part of the hiking experience! I'm not going to lose sleep over it, because I know that I cannot plan for all eventualities, there is always an element of risk in day to day life.
Mind you, I do know a couple in the next road who have a son and daughter (about 4 and 7) who I genuinely believe have never been in a wood and certainly have never been dirty! They are always, but always, immaculate, dirt, bugs, etc would never dare get near them!