Season 4, Episode 10: Mary Hayden: Water, Risk, and the Human Side of Vector-Borne Disease
Mary H. Hayden, Research Professor at the University of Colorado’s Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience, Affiliate Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and Adjunct Faculty at the Colorado School of Public Health.
Listen
Dr. Mary Hayden, a medical anthropologist and Research Professor with the Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, joins John to explore how human behavior and water insecurity are reshaping the spread of mosquito-borne disease. With fieldwork spanning the U.S. and Latin America, Mary shares how climate change is expanding disease risk into new regions – and why public health strategies must go beyond spraying to include education, trust, and community action.
“ We saw the introduction of Aedes albopictus, which is often referred to as the Asian Tiger Mosquito, into Houston in 1985, and it was in used tires. It’s made its way all the way up the Eastern seaboard, into as far north as Maine.”
Key Topics
How Climate Change and Human Behavior Interact to Drive Disease Spread: Mary explains how shifts in temperature, precipitation, and elevation are helping mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus thrive in new environments.
The Role of Water Insecurity in Creating Breeding Grounds: John and Mary discuss how water storage in under-resourced communities—driven by lack of reliable access—can unintentionally fuel mosquito outbreaks, especially in places already vulnerable to disease.
Why Fogging Isn’t the Solution: Mary breaks down why fogging and spraying often fail to control mosquito-borne disease, particularly with urban mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti, and highlights more effective, community-level strategies.
Public Health Messaging and the Power of Education: From identifying mosquito larvae to recognizing risk, Mary outlines how tailored, trusted, and practical public health messages can help people take action before an outbreak begins.
A Dream Project to Empower Women: Mary shares her vision for using mobile technology to help women in low-resource settings monitor vector-borne disease risk at the household level—and take proactive steps to protect their families.
Links to Relevant Studies and Resources:
Learn more about Dr. Mary Hayden and her work at the Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience.
Read about CDC’s climate-related vector-borne disease work, which Mary discusses in this episode.
Learn about the CDC’s Zika Postpartum Emergency Response Study in Puerto Rico during the 2016 outbreak.
Further Reading:
Mary discusses the risks of water insecurity and mosquito breeding. Read this 2021 study from the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene on how household water access and storage practices shape Aedes aegypti breeding in Mexico.
Mary highlights the limitations of fogging during mosquito outbreaks. Learn more about integrated vector management—an approach that combines community engagement, environmental control, and targeted strategies to reduce disease risk.
“I think it’s really important that we prioritize this idea of water security because that’s how we’re going to manage vector-borne diseases.”
Transcript
START (AUDACIOUS WATER SEASON 4 EPISODE 10)
[MUSIC]
JOHN: Welcome to Audacious Water, the podcast about how to create a world of water abundance for everyone. I'm John Sabo, director of the ByWater Institute at Tulane University. On today's show, how human behavior and water access shape the spread of mosquito-borne disease. Climate change is creating the conditions for Dengue and West Nile to thrive, but the real story lies in how people respond. My guest is Dr. Mary Hayden, a medical anthropologist and research professor at the Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. From rural Colombia to U.S. cities, Mary studies how communities perceive risk, make decisions, and adapt to emerging threats. Today we'll talk about why mosquito control isn't just about climate--it's about behavior, communication, and everyday choices.
JOHN: Mary, welcome to the show.
MARY: Thank you, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
JOHN: Yeah, it's been fun catching up with you. And for the listeners, I grew up in Colorado Springs where Mary is from, and we know each other through family, and so this is going to be a fun interview. Mary, let me ask you--I call it a "softball pitch"--but I like to start with kind of something personal. And the question I have for you is, you know, you work on vector-borne disease, topics related to entomology, the tropics. When you were a little girl did you ever imagine that you would have a job like you have today?
MARY: I didn't. But, you know, John, I was born in Hawaii, so I always like to say I spent the first few years of my life there. So I'm sort of used to that tropical weather, and I prefer it. So I think that that was one of the things that drew me to Dengue. But I started out more on the meteorology/climatology side, and then became interested in vector-borne diseases and how they were being affected by changes in weather and climate.
JOHN: Interesting, okay. Well, let's dive into that topic. Your research focuses on the intersection of climate health and human behavior. From your experience what are some of the most concerning trends you've seen regarding the spread of vector-borne disease due to climate change?
MARY: Well, you know, as you know we're seeing shifts in the distribution, in the abundance, and in the seasonality of these pathogens and all of the infections that are associated with them. So we're seeing this throughout. It's not just with mosquitos, but it's also with ticks. Animals are moving in response to it as well as plants. And so we expect to see increases, particularly in the abundance of mosquitos and subsequent cases of Dengue. And I'm not sure if you know this, but last year was unfortunately a banner year for Dengue--there were over 13 million cases of Dengue fever in the Americas alone in 2024. This year we've seen a slight decrease in the number of cases thus far, but still what we're seeing is I think about 15% above what we've seen over the last five years. So increases across the board. And that's in response to not just a warming climate, but also shifts in precipitation regimes.
JOHN: Wow. I know it's striking, right? Like, I am in Mexico City a lot, and typically I think of Dengue as something that I would get in the jungle of Cambodia or in Ecuador. But obviously it's not a disease that's restricted to rural areas; it's also in urban areas. And every time I see a mosquito in Mexico City I think, oh, that could be Dengue.
MARY: It could be.
JOHN: Talk to me about that kind of inner-play between urban areas and rural areas.
MARY: Right. And so typically what we see is up until now the malaria--and (often) the mosquitos, malaria-transmitting mosquitos--have been found in rural areas. Aedes aegypti is much more of an urban mosquito, and so the thing that's really inhibited it from spreading more in Mexico City is the elevation. And we have done studies ranging from Vera Cruz in Mexico along an altitudinal transect up to Mexico City, where we actually have documented a few aedes aegypti. And this was ten years ago. So I'm sure by now this adaptable mosquito has made its way into other parts of Mexico City. But it's a tropical mosquito - subtropical mosquito, but we have so many aedes aegypti in Arizona in the desert. So they're, as I said, very adaptable--they're able to find these tiny little niches where they can breed and proliferate.
JOHN: Wow.
MARY: And I'd be happy to give you some examples of this; it's crazy. I mean, you can find mosquitos in three centimeters of water in a bottle cap, you can find larvae. And as long as that's in a shaded area and doesn't dry out they're just happy.
JOHN: Adaptable little buggers.
MARY: Oh, unfortunately, mm-hm.
JOHN: So let's bring it home a little bit. When you think about vector-borne disease and some of the transformations in climate that we're seeing daily in the United States, or annually in the United States, such as the tropics moving north, what do you worry about for the United States and these sorts of vector borne diseases?
MARY: Well, we saw the introduction of aedes albopictus, which is often referred to as the "Asian tiger mosquito," into Houston in 1985. And it was in used tires. And it's made its way all the way up the Eastern Seaboard into as far north as Maine. It's also moving westward. And we found plenty of aedes albopictus in Nebraska now. So it's not just climate. I mean, climate is a big factor when it comes to this. But it's also these mosquitos move, as I mentioned, in used tires. They can move very readily and adapt to the environment very quickly. We haven't seen them very much in Colorado. Of course when West Nile was introduced to Colorado in 2002, 2003, there was a lot more trapping going on from mosquitos, and there were definitely aedes albopictus in used tire lots north of Denver. But whether they've established is not likely yet. But I would expect that as they continue to adapt to altitude and changes in the weather that we will see them in Colorado eventually. But other factors come into play, too. We have cases of Dengue - we have locally-acquired cases. And that's what I'm talking about in the United States, too, is not just the travel-related but those that are locally-acquired cases, meaning that somebody brought the virus in, or brought the mosquito with the virus in, and it was transmitted and continues to be transmitted locally. But we see this in Florida a lot because so many cruise ships are going to other parts of the Caribbean, mosquitos are coming back on the ships, people infected with Dengue are coming back on the ships back home, and so bringing the virus with them.
JOHN: This is a point that I talked to Dawn Wesson about--and we talked about Dawn Wesson earlier--just how complicated the vector-borne disease cycle is, and how that interacts with climate change. And so I appreciate that you brought up and reminded me about that complexity. Let's turn to a slightly different topic. You've worked extensively on risk perception and communication. What are some of the biggest challenges you see in getting policymakers and the public to take vector-borne disease threats seriously?
MARY: I think that when we saw the introduction of West Nile into the United States I think people were actually concerned about acquiring the pathogens, and so people were taking steps to reduce their risk. But it's a difficult thing--we don't have that many tools available for people. We ask people to take personal protective measures. So we ask them to wear long sleeves and long pants. But of course this is tough to do when it's 120 degrees outside in a desert climate. And we ask people to use repellant. And, you know, there's so many myths surrounding the use of repellant that it's oftentimes difficult to get people to use them. I worked in Puerto Rico in 2016 with the CDC on the Zika outbreak. And one of the things we were trying to work with was of course with pregnant women, because we know that it can be sexually - Zika can be sexually transmitted. And so we were trying to get pregnant women to use repellant. They were worried that the chemicals might harm their babies in utero. So we really focused on using oil of lemon eucalyptus, which is an EPA-approved repellant, but which has a much nicer sounding name than picaridin or DEET, less chemically-sounding. And it's very effective as well. So that's one of the things as behavioral scientists that I try to understand is what steps are people willing to take, and working with them on the types of steps that are needed.
JOHN: Wow, that's interesting. And I totally agree, I like that organic-sounding approach much better than DEET. I used DEET sometimes, especially when I'm in the Amazon, places where there are just mosquitos everywhere. But that makes a ton of sense.
MARY: Well, I would recommend picaridin if I were...
JOHN: Picaridin, okay.
MARY: ...speaking with you personally, John, yes I would.
JOHN: Okay. All right. Check. No...
MARY: It doesn't have the "eau de DEET," as we like to call it. And it's very effective against ticks as well.
JOHN: Oh wow, okay. Thanks for that recommendation.
MARY: Sure.
JOHN: So again, back home how well do current public-health policies align with the realities of climate-driven disease spread, and where do you see gaps?
MARY: There are definitely gaps. You know, as you know, public health has been under-resourced for many years now. And so they're focused mostly on outbreaks. It's not on preventative measures unfortunately. And so when something happens, then they'll take steps and alerts will go out, the population will be warned about these things. But we're working very hard to develop messages that can be used by the public health departments. They don't have the resources necessary all the time to be able to develop their own messages, and to develop unique ways of disseminating those messages. So those are really two of the big gaps: messages that appeal to people across the board that are targeted towards specific communities--because we know that one size doesn't fit all--and also different mechanisms for disseminating these messages. Because people in rural areas may not have as much access to internet as people in urban areas. So we have to think creatively about how to get these messages across.
JOHN: That's very interesting. I mean, you know, I want to hit on this theme a little bit, because in the water world and in the natural disaster world there's a very similar phenomenon, which is when you're in the middle of drought it's all-hands-on-deck. And as soon as it rains or snows then you forget that there's drought and the planning stops, the proactive planning. And the same can be said for many phenomena related to climate change here in New Orleans, one of which we're going to discuss tonight at my facility here at Tulane, and it's saltwater intrusion in the water supply, which we had, you know, a state of emergency about in 2023. And now it's not even hindsight, 2020--it's in the rearview mirror. So how do you change that discourse to get to a proactive rather than a reactive disaster-management kind of mindset?
MARY: You know, this is a great question. I have a project right now on Dengue in Colombia. I’m working with people at the University de los Andes in Bogotá. And we're working in Ibagué. And recently - I was recently there going through some of the neighborhoods in which we're working, which are some of the underserved and under-resourced neighborhoods, and water storage is a huge issue. People have access to piped water maybe for two hours every other day. And so they store their water, which of course we know is a perfect breeding site for mosquitos. And so, you know, there's where the push-and-pull comes in. I mean, they're less worried about mosquitos than they are about having water for their families. But on the other side of that they're also worried about the water quality, because they were telling us that if they bathe in that water they get rashes all over them. And so they boil the water for the babies to bathe in, and they boil the water for drinking. But access to water is a huge, huge issue when it comes to vector-borne diseases.
JOHN: Well, that's an interesting intersection. You know, one of the ones that we think about a lot in New Orleans, and that we're working on right now, is green infrastructure, which is, you know, a common remedy for heavy rainfall and for stormwater management, and floods, and things like that. But it has this counter-risk, right, which is that it's habitat.
MARY: Right - right. Yes, and I think - you know, back to your original part of that question is how do you get people to prioritize something like Dengue when there's water insecurity, when there's food insecurity? I mean, what we're trying to do is to couple all of these together, so trying to get people to understand that despite this water insecurity, and here's what maybe we can do to help mitigate some of that, we also need to focus on Dengue. Because it will make you sick for two weeks, you'll be out of work, that type of thing. So trying to get people to understand the ramifications of Dengue. It's an interesting challenge, particularly on prioritizing it.
[MUSIC]
JOHN: Up next Mary explains why fogging for mosquitos often doesn't work, how water storage and poor infrastructure create mosquito habitat, and why community education and behavioral change are the keys to real prevention.
JOHN: So interesting, your work in Colombia and in Latin America more broadly. Back home you've worked with a lot of federal agencies on issues like this. How well-equipped are we as a country to prepare for increase in vector-borne diseases?
MARY: I might throw that back at you, John? How well-equipped are we in this country to prepare for the next pandemic?
JOHN: Right? Yeah, and I've talked about this with Dean of Public Health here at Tulane, Thomas LaVeist. And it is similar, right? I think it's a little bit more slow-moving with vector-borne though, right?
MARY: Potentially. It depends - I mean, you know, West Nile spread pretty rapidly across the U.S. in a short period of time when it was first introduced, because we had a naïve population from the immunity perspective.
JOHN: Yeah, I remember during COVID I kept thinking--and, you know, like, we're both scientists--and I kept looking at the projections and the mortality curve every day for the first three months, like, hoping that it was going to - that I was going to see an inflection point.
MARY: Right.
JOHN: And it took me six months to get real about it and just say, you know, this is going to be here for two years.
MARY: Right - right.
JOHN: They dynamics are different for vectors though, I think, right?
MARY: They are. You know, we often think we have tools in our toolkit to reduce mosquito abundance, but we also have to worry about all kinds of issues when we're doing that. You know, oftentimes you'll see governments, and in the U.S. but also in much of Latin America, spraying, you know, for mosquitos during an outbreak. And that's really not very effective, particularly with aedes aegypti. It may be more effective against culex mosquitos, the mosquitos that transmit West Nile. But against aedes aegypti, because they are such para-domestic mosquitos, it's completely ineffective. And so it seems to me always that it's a waste of money to actually do that because it's not really going to change the dynamics of the outbreak. And so trying to get people to understand that they'd be much better off working at a local level, working with populations to control the breeding sites in their yards, as opposed to spraying, is what I've spent my career trying to do.
JOHN: That's amazing, really interesting. Talk to me about human behavior part of that and educating about activity and proximity to breeding. Is there a management scenario you can see there?
MARY: Well, I think there needs to be so much more education. I mean, I think most people have no idea what immature mosquitos look like. And so when they see these little white wriggly things in water they have no idea that that is a larva that in a couple of days will emerge into an adult mosquito looking for someone to feed on. And so that's the first step in educating people is to get them to recognize what's in their yard. And oftentimes - I've done work in Key West and other parts of the U.S. on mosquito-borne diseases, and will say to people, you know, "Do you have any breeding sites in your backyard? Do you have any containers with water in them or other places where mosquitos could breed?" And people will say, "No - no, of course not. I have a clean backyard." Well, we'll go out into their yard with them and show them all the places where we find mosquitos, and show them what the larvae look like so that they're cognizant of this. And, I mean, this is across the world that we have this issue. And so that's the first step in educating people. The second step is trying to ensure that they reduce these breeding sites by dumping standing water that's not needed for drinking purposes or cooking purposes. And that's a much more difficult proposition in parts of the developing world, because people need to store that water. I mentioned that example to you earlier about Ibagué. And so trying to get people to either put a net covering over it, or to treat the water with BTI, this bacillus that is not harmful to anything but mosquito larvae, is another thing we work on, the next step. But it's challenging.
JOHN: Wow. Yeah, that's - I mean, it's a little bit of hand-to-hand combat, right? You've got to go door-to-door.
MARY: Right. And we saw that. That was one of the ways the Panama Canal was built was that Gorgas did that, went door-to-door emptying containers and reducing aedes aegypti because of the Yellow Fever threat.
JOHN: That's interesting. That's an interesting example. Okay, back - I keep pulling us back even though I would love to talk about Latin America, South America a lot more. In your opinion what kinds of policy shifts or investments would make the biggest difference in preventing outbreaks and protecting vulnerable populations here in the U.S.? And then I'll come back to climate change after that.
MARY: Sure. I mean, I think that we need to really beef up our educational efforts. I've done work on Lyme disease in the New York City area, and people have no idea. They just have no idea what a tick is versus what a spider is. I mean, it's identifying the potential vectors for these diseases. It's getting people to recognize that they can actually take steps to reduce their risk in their own yards. And also getting them to understand that when they're out hiking, when they're in areas where ticks and mosquitos proliferate, that they should be taking personal protective measures to do that. And so working with health departments to ensure that they have innovative and creative messages that really grab people is something that I think is critical and that we don't see that often.
JOHN: So it's education and outreach, and to a certain extent communications - effective communications.
MARY: Right, effective communications but also ensuring that the communications are targeted towards specific populations so that it actually reaches the people.
JOHN: Right. Let's go back to your statement about sometimes spraying, fogging is a waste of money. Like, what's the expenditure in an era where expenditures are really important to understand? What's the expenditure comparison between the education that would be needed and the amount of resource that's put into chemical prevention?
MARY: Sure. I mean, when you think about the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, this is a para-domestic mosquito, that it can be controlled at a household level... I mean, obviously you have other areas such as empty lots and things like that where people don't necessarily have control but the city has control over those. And so it's getting everyone to work on how to either collect garbage that's lying around the neighborhood, or ensure that there are no old used tires thrown around--those types of things are so much more effective than spending money on spraying. And also with spraying you have to worry about how long that spray will be effective.
JOHN: Right. It reminds me a little bit about - I mean, I spent plenty of time in California in graduate school, and it reminds me a little bit about education campaigns that were done around para-domestic fire protection, and to use your word, like making sure you didn't have vegetation and you had proper water supplies installed to keep things wet when fires were coming around your house so that your house wouldn't go up in flames.
MARY: Yeah, absolutely.
JOHN: It's a little bit like that, right, like, getting people to really buy into protecting their home.
MARY: Right, protecting themselves and their families. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, and acting - behavior change is never really easy because people have other priorities, and so that's - when outbreaks happen people are much more likely to take measures to reduce their risk. But the goal is to try to get that risk to be reduced right from the outside so that we don't have to worry about outbreaks.
JOHN: Right. So trying to figure out how to pitch you this question, but...
MARY: [LAUGHTER] Go ahead.
JOHN: And, you know, like, there's so many vector-borne diseases, and we hear about Zika, we hear about Yellow Fever, we hear about Dengue. What's the next outbreak? Like, what do you worry about the most that you think we need to prepare for if we go back to the COVID topic of being prepared?
MARY: Oh, are you talking about any infectious disease? I think it's Avian Influenza, if that's what you're thinking about.
JOHN: That's fair.
MARY: Yeah, absolutely.
JOHN: But no, I was thinking more about vector-borne.
MARY: Sure.
JOHN: But you could rank that against Avian Flu I think; that would be useful.
MARY: Right. I'm thinking this Oropouche virus is interesting. It's spread by midges and something that we're just starting to see. And of course it's very difficult to protect yourself against midges. Repellants are not necessarily that effective, and of course bed-netting, things like that, they're small enough that they can fit through the holes in some of this. And so we're also seeing a potential for sexual transmission with Oropouche as well. So it's a very Dengue-like virus.
JOHN: Wow. Talk to me about these midges--are they no-see-ums, are they biting midges, or are they just...?
MARY: Yeah, they're biting midges, mm-hm.
JOHN: Oh, that's interesting.
MARY: Yeah. And we're seeing it a lot in Cuba this year, Brazil, and other places. So it's working its way through the Americas.
JOHN: Okay. So given what we know about climate change and vector-borne diseases what should we be prioritizing now to prepare for the next decade?
MARY: Well, as you know, first we need to acknowledge that the climate is changing, and then we need to prepare areas... I'm going to just tell you about a little project that I'm working on right now that is looking at taking surveys that are being used all over the country, and trying to standardize this into a modular type of survey. Because one of the things we find is that in areas that are endemic or where we've seen disease outbreaks or disease transmitted for a long time, versus newly-emerging areas, we don't have any points of comparison. And so we're trying to develop these surveys so that they can be used by health departments in both endemic areas and in newly-emerging areas, so that they can do a comparison of how people's behavior has shifted over time in endemic areas. And we think that this will help the health departments in newly-emerging areas develop mechanisms to reduce the incidence of vector-borne diseases in their regions. So basically trying to do lessons learned from endemic areas and applying those to newly-emerging areas.
JOHN: Well, that's treatment-control design, too, which is very elegant.
MARY: Yes.
JOHN: Wow, that's cool. So that kind of leads me - like, I was thinking about my next question as you were giving me your answer. And a little bit off-script but super-relevant to today's world--if you could write an RFP for the dream project that you want to do in the next five years what would that be?
MARY: Well, I have a dream project [LAUGHTER] that I've been trying to get funded for a while, and it's in the developing world, and it's focused on bringing more women into vector control. I think "women" is a bad word now, too, but I'm just going to say it. Because we know that in much of the developing world women are the ones who are responsible for the health of their families. And they're the ones who are working day-to-day with their families to ensure their health. I would like to have people have access to a phone app that shows them their risk of vector-borne disease outbreaks over a certain period of time, so that we're looking at weather indices as well as mosquito indices, coupling them together in something that's accessible even to people who have flip-phones, where they can see, "Okay, today's a high-risk day," or "next week will be high-risk for vector-borne diseases. I need to go out into my yard and I need to ensure that my containers do not contain water so that my family's risk is reduced." And having networks of women who work in the neighborhood, much like the promotores do in much of the developing Latin-American world, I think is something that we would like to see brought to fruition.
JOHN: That's super interesting. And, you know, I'm in the water world, and pretty much the same could be said for water, that in most of the developing world women are responsible for bringing water and guaranteeing its cleanliness and safety for their families.
MARY: Yeah.
JOHN: And what we're learning from this interview is that they're part and parcel with each other...
MARY: Exactly.
JOHN: ...the vector-borne and the water-supply piece. Very interesting.
MARY: Yeah, but I think it's really important that we prioritize this idea of water security, because that's how we're going to manage vector-borne diseases.
JOHN: Wow, that's a great insight. So maybe to close out, what gives you hope? Like, this is a great project, let's say it got funded, or even if it doesn't get funded--what do you think is going well and what gives you hope for the future in the face of vector-borne disease?
MARY: Yeah. One of the things that I so appreciate, John, is working with colleagues in different parts of Latin America. The colleagues I've worked with at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá are amazing, and really their hearts and souls are into trying to figure out a way to better help their populations reduce their risk. And so that gives me so much hope to see that.
JOHN: That's great. And I think that's a good place to close this fantastic interview. And Mary, it's been a pleasure to talk to you and reconnect with you. Thanks for being on the show.
MARY: Yeah, thanks for having me, John. My pleasure.
[MUSIC]
JOHN: Okay, that's a wrap on this episode, and on the final episode for this season on climate transformations faced by the Mississippi River Basin. This episode focuses on climate change and human health, and the possibility of increased vulnerability of Basin residents to tropical vector-borne disease. One of the upshots of the episode is that humans play a strong role in prevention. Most vector-borne diseases have multiple hosts. In the case of Yellow Fever a bird is the primary host, and humans are the secondary host. Birds tend to be the source of the virus, a female mosquito feeds on this bird, which has viral loads large enough to infect it, then that mosquito feeds again on a human and transfers the disease. Interestingly, in a lot of vector-borne diseases humans can get sick from the vector--here the vector is the mosquito--but the viral load in humans is not high enough to infect another vector that hasn't yet fed on a bird. Now on to the behavior. First, managing adult vectors doesn't work that well, so visions of mosquito-fogging operations in the French Quarter are kind of science fiction. Instead Mary says we need to manage mosquito habitat to prevent breeding in the first place. Here there are clear tradeoffs with urban green spaces. Green infrastructure can be habitat for vectors. More importantly, Mary says the habitat is often in your backyard. A mosquito can breed in a space as small as a bottlecap full of water. So clearing artificial habitats like this from your backyard is extremely important, and is really important during the bird nesting season in the early spring. Managing standing water in your immediate household environment is the key. One final note that I think is very important given how the funding landscape is changing in public health, is that Mary thinks public education is the key to successful control. And importantly, funding for this outreach in education is critical.
JOHN: That's it for this episode of Audacious Water. If you like the show please rate and review us, and tell your colleagues and friends. For more information about Audacious Water, and to find in-depth show notes from this episode, visit our website at AudaciousWater.org. Until next time, I'm John Sabo.
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END (AUDACIOUS WATER SEASON 4 EPISODE 10)