Overview of Mosquito Abatement Programs from a National Level

Abatement of mosquitoes in the United States occurs at the local level.  The size, organizational structure, activities provided and mission of a program is dependent on local needs and support.  Enabling legislation allowing the formation of independent mosquito abatement districts does not exist in many states.  Programs may be an independent district, a stand-alone department or exist within some other administrative structure. The jurisdiction covered by abatement programs can vary greatly.  For example, in Delaware mosquito abatement is managed at the State level while in other states it is managed at a county or town level.   The mission of individual programs can vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction with programs addressing only nuisance species, only vector species or a combination of both.  Abatement activities conducted by individual programs should be designed to target the most relevant species based on sound knowledge of the species behavior within the local environment.    Programs often share such information using formats such as State or Regional trade associations however many programs choose not to participate.   Most States require some form of specialized licensing for a program to apply public health insecticides.  This licensing usually requires continuing education to maintain the right to apply insecticides.  However, training provided by the licensing agency often focuses on regulatory updates or application safety and not on the basic mosquito biology needed to design the most effective abatement strategy.  Examples of the wide diversity of programs that exist will be given.