Abstract
.Perceived exposure to mosquitoes plays a fundamental role in the adoption of a range of protective behaviors aiming to prevent and control mosquito-borne disease. However, it is largely unknown in the present literature to what extent perceived exposure is associated with actual exposure. Moreover, the perception of nuisance may depend on the natural environment in which human populations are living, and especially its epidemiological context. In this study, the hypothesis that perceived exposure is driven by mosquito abundance was tested in two different geographic areas. We compared a range of perceived nuisance measures—collected through questionnaires—with egg number measured within ovitraps located in the south of France, which has been recently colonized by an arbovirus vector, and La Martinique island, a tropical French territory, which has a long history of outbreaks of mosquito-borne pathogens. Unexpectedly, only the nuisance due to mosquito noise was correlated with ovitrap activity in southern France. All other perceived exposure measures, both in the south of France and in Martinique, were not correlated with egg number surrounding households investigated. These results suggest the existence of habituation effects that may disturb the engagement in adaptive behaviors in the face of change in the entomological conditions.
Highlights
Mosquito-borne pathogens are a growing concern worldwide.[1]
We compared a range of perceived nuisance measures—collected through questionnaires—with egg number measured within ovitraps located in the south of France, which has been recently colonized by an arbovirus vector, and La Martinique island, a tropical French territory, which has a long history of outbreaks of mosquito-borne pathogens
As health protective behaviors are known to be very sensitive to the perceived exposure to vector, it is extremely important to know whether it adequately reflects the actual exposure of human population to mosquitoes.[3]
Summary
Mosquito-borne pathogens are a growing concern worldwide.[1]. the development of insecticide resistance has dramatically decreased the effectiveness of conventional methods. From an entomological point of view, abundance of adult mosquitoes (through BG traps or CDC traps mainly), egg abundance (through ovitraps), and composite indicators measuring area productivity (such as Breteau index) are commonly used. Nuisance is a feeling generally characterized by an embarrassment or a suffering experience, which can be expressed by interviewed people according to the perception of this feeling This perception can vary individually because this acoustic and kinesthetic perception tends to be highly subjective.[5] this nuisance feeling can be modulated by the local epidemiological context, and especially the habituation effect of human population to mosquito-borne pathogen outbreaks.[6,7,8]
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