Allen, Tammy, Crouch, Alan, Russell, Tanya L., and Topp, Stephanie M. (2025) Community engagement approaches and influencing factors in Aedes mosquito management: a case study from North Queensland, Australia. BMC Public Health, 25. 3255.

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Abstract

Aim: Community engagement plays a crucial role in preventing and managing Aedes-borne mosquito disease outbreaks, such as dengue. There is limited research on the engagement approaches used in high-income country contexts with existing research suggesting a preference for top-down vector control relying on one-way communication to engage and mobilize at-risk communities. The reasons behind why authorities use certain engagement approaches over others are underexplored. This study explores the community engagement approaches used in Aedes mosquito management in Townsville, Australia, and the factors influencing the choice of these approaches.

Methods: The study used a case study design employing two qualitative methodologies: semi-structured key informant interviews (N = 15) and a review of key documents (N = 13). Both inductive and deductive approaches were used to thematically analyse the data.

Results: A range of approaches were used to engage the community in Aedes mosquito management. From mass media campaigns and door-to-door inspections, to engaging the community in Wolbachia mosquito-releases, and helping authorities with indoor spraying during outbreak response. The factors influencing the choice of these approaches included legal obligations and regulatory compliance, vector control norms, leadership beliefs, human and financial resourcing.

Conclusions: This study provides new insights into why authorities adopt specific community engagement approaches in Aedes mosquito management, within a high-income country context. It identifies barriers to enhancing community engagement and suggests strategies for addressing them in future planning. These findings are particularly relevant given the increasing Aedes mosquito risk in similar high-income country settings.

Item ID:	90254
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1471-2458
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Funders:	National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC)
Projects and Grants:	NHMRC GNT1173004
Date Deposited:	15 Jan 2026 00:31
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