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Housing and Climate Resource Library

Vector Control Resources

This page is about surveillance and control activities for mosquitoes and ticks and related disease.

Relevant variables for this topic include mosquito-borne and tickborne disease and tick surveillance and control activity.

General

Advanced Molecular Detection: Identifying Vector-Borne Diseases
Most individual disease pages include the number of cases reported to CDC, and some have maps of distribution. Cache Valley, Chikungunya, dengue fever, eastern equine encephalitis, Nile fever, and Zika are some of the diseases spread by mosquitoes. Lyme disease, Powassan virus disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, southern tick-associated rash illness, and tickborne relapsing fever are some of the diseases spread by ticks.

Study

Vector Surveillance and Control at the Local Level
The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), with support through a cooperative agreement with Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), conducted a national assessment that measured the capacity of local vector control programs in 2017, 2020, and 2023. The assessment doesn’t report data but indicates how well local vector programs (such as those at local health departments) may be able to handle mosquito-borne and tickborne disease. This assessment provides an understanding of local and tick surveillance and control capacity. The effects of climate change may influence the risk of vector-borne disease. This resource identifies local vector programs have the capacity to tolerate an increased risk of vector-borne diseases as climate change continues to occur and the in-house services that are offered.

Datasets/Data Explorers

Johns Hopkins Lyme and Tickborne Disease Dashboard 
The Johns Hopkins Lyme and Tickborne Disease Dashboard compiles a comprehensive set of maps and spatial datasets that is guided by the One Health approach that considers the connection of human, animal, and environmental health. The dashboard uses multiple data sources to understand the geography of tickborne disease and serve as a global tracker and hub for research. The dashboard hosts historical data on reported cases of Lyme and tickborne diseases, insurance claims, tick data, environmental data, sociodemographic data, and Google trends. The dashboards track cases of Lyme, babesiosis, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis (E. chaffeensis), and spotted fever rickettsiosis. Overview.

  • Dataset owner: Johns Hopkins University.
  • Dataset update frequency/maintenance: Update frequency is unclear, but data is currently available through 2023.
  • Dataset jurisdictions included: The Johns Hopkins Lyme and Tickborne Disease Dashboard covers the entire United States at the county level as well as Canada and Europe.
  • Specific climate and housing variables:
    • Name of variable: Average temperature.
    • What the variable measures: This variable shows the seasonal average temperature (in degrees Fahrenheit) by county.
    • Variable source: Monthly average temperature data are from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) U.S. Climate Divisional Database (nClimDiv) and are available through NOAA’s Climate at a Glance tool.
  • Name of variable: Total precipitation.
    • What the variable measures: This variable shows the seasonal total precipitation (inches) by county.
    • Variable source: Monthly total precipitation data are from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) U.S. Climate Divisional Database (nClimDiv) and are available through NOAA’s Climate at a Glance tool.
  • Name of variable: Percent forest-developed edge.
    • What the variable measures: This variable shows the percentage of forest-developed edge by county. “Forest-developed edge” refers to the borderline between forest and developed (i.e., human-constructed) land.
    • Variable source: The percentage forest-developed edge data is calculated by dividing the forest developed edge by total forest edge. Forest edge data is calculated by county level data from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), 2016.

Tickborne Disease Surveillance Data Summary 
The Tickborne Disease Surveillance Data Summary complies datasets and maps on various tickborne disease data such as Lyme, anaplasmosis, spotted fever rickettsiosis, ehrlichiosis, babesiosis, tularemia, and Powassan virus. The dashboard process cases by year and month. The dataset includes information on reported cases, demographic details, and geographic distribution.

  • Dataset owner: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • Dataset update frequency/maintenance: Update frequency is unclear, but data is currently available from 2019 to 2022.
  • Dataset jurisdictions included: The Tickborne Disease Surveillance Summary dashboard covers the entire United States at the county level.
  • Specific climate and housing variable: The number of cases in each state and/or U.S. territory is tracked for each tickborne disease. The states report cases of each disease to the CDC. The CDC hosts a webpage for each tickborne disease; the content and date for each disease page varies. Some of the webpages have datasets from various years, while others host background, symptoms, and/or treatment information about each disease. The content source for each disease page is the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID).

 

Latest page update: July 21, 2025.