Public Health Nurse: Assessing & Addressing Mosquito Breeding

This discussion post examines mosquito breeding grounds from the perspective of a public health nurse (PHN), focusing on a specific site: a foreclosed home with an above-ground pool. Mosquitoes breed in standing water, eaves, drains, and ornamental pools, making such neglected properties ideal breeding grounds. Mosquitoes are vectors for diseases like malaria, dengue, and chikungunya, highlighting the importance of control measures. Morris County's Mosquito Control initiatives, including pest management, biological controls, water management, and public education, are mentioned. The role of the community health department and the US health department in providing information and programs for mosquito abatement is also discussed. The post suggests that PHNs can improve mosquito control policies by participating in disease surveillance and educating individuals, ultimately contributing to a healthier environment. The Environmental Protection Agency's policies for mosquito control could be improved with the help of PHNs.

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Mosquitoes are mostly breed in watery place like standing water, eaves and drains, bird
baths and ornamental pools. One of the most common mosquito breeding places is ground pool.
The Site is: A home in foreclosure with an above ground pool, where rain water could be stored
and there are many bushes where mosquito could breed. Such unclean place is the best place for
the mosquito to breed.
Mosquitoes are vector of many infectious diseases such as malaria, dengue, yellow fever
and chikungunya (Weaver & Lecuit, 2015). Thus, it is important to reduce the number of place
where they could breed and introduce effective initiatives to control their breeding in order to
reduce the risk of mosquito born diseases. In this regard, many effective steps have been taken
by the responsible authority Mosquito Control of Morris Country, for example, pest
management, biological controls, water management, and public education to achieve expected
outcomes. Some recent steps includes adult mosquito control operation, travelling displays to
provide information to the population about being safe from tick bites and Asian tiger mosquito
program. The department also provides information regarding control the mosquito breeding
such as cleaning the birth baths once in a week, cleaning drains and gutters, using fish in the

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ornamental ponds and many others (morriscountynj.gov, 2018). The community health
department also provides effective service for mosquito abatement. The US health department
provides information to the people regarding the infectious disease that could occur due to tick
bite and arrange effective programs to provide effective way of controlling mosquito breeding.
They provide ideas regarding the action that could be taken by the community to control
mosquito breeding, for example, idea of using screen to prevent the mosquitoes from entering in
the home, using ointment that could prevent tick bite, importance of using insecticides, idea of
healthy habits like covering food so that mosquito could not contaminate the food and many
others (Yakob & Walker, 2016). The policies of Environmental Protection Agency for mosquito
control could be improved by the help of the public health nurses or PHN (US EPA, 2018). They
could help in surveillance of mosquito born diseases and create awareness in the individual level.
Their guidelines could help to prevent severe diseases such as malaria, dengue and many others.
Their participation in the education season could help the people to understand the process of
mosquito control (morriscountynj.gov, 2018). Such effort of the PHN could help to improve the
mosquito control program and create a healthier climate.

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Reference:
morriscountynj.gov (2018). Mosquito control. Retrieved from
https://morriscountynj.gov/mosquito/info/
US EPA. (2018). Joint Statement on Mosquito Control in the United States | US EPA. [online]
Available at: https://www.epa.gov/mosquitocontrol/joint-statement-mosquito-control-
united-states [Accessed 21 Jun. 2018].
Weaver, S. C., & Lecuit, M. (2015). Chikungunya virus and the global spread of a mosquito-
borne disease. New England Journal of Medicine, 372(13), 1231-1239.
Yakob, L., & Walker, T. (2016). Zika virus outbreak in the Americas: the need for novel
mosquito control methods. The Lancet Global Health, 4(3), e148-e149.