Social and ecological predictors of continued citizen-led management of the Tiger mosquito,Aedes albopictus

The worldwide spread of the Tiger Mosquito (TM), Aedes albopictus, demands effective urban mosquito management. Agency-led management and commercial control are often ineffective or unwanted. In 2017, citizens of University Park, Maryland led a city-wide campaign to distribute Gravid Aedes Traps (GATs), a large passive oviposition trap successful at capturing Aedes mosquitoes. This campaign resulted in significant reductions of adult TM in areas with >80% GAT coverage. The goal of our study was to test the continued effectiveness of University Park’s program in 2021. We distributed a questionnaire to all households to test demographic, environmental, knowledge, attitude, and practice predictors of GAT deployment, and conducted adult trapping at 18 sites to test if current levels of GAT deployment still predicted reductions in area-wide adult TM. Multi-factor linear models found that GAT deployment was significantly predicted by several social and ecological variables. We also found that area-wide adult TM areas was negatively related to GAT coverage. In this talk, we will discuss the findings of our study in more detail and its implications for mosquito control in other urban areas.