Validity of Self-Reported Mosquito Bites to Assess Household Mosquito Abundance in Six Communities of Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Mosquito-borne diseases are a global burden; however, current methods of evaluating human–mosquito contact rates are expensive and time consuming. Validated surveys of self-reported mosquito bites may be an inexpensive way to determine mosquito presence and bite exposure level in an area, but this remains untested. In this study, a survey of self-reported mosquito bites was validated against household mosquito abundance from six communities in Esmeraldas, Ecuador. From February 2021 to July 2022, households were interviewed monthly, and five questions were used to ask participants how often they were bitten by mosquitoes at different times during the day. At the same time, adult mosquitoes were collected using a Prokopack aspirator. Species were identified and counted. Survey responses were compared with the total number of mosquitoes found in the home using negative binomial regression. More frequent self-reported mosquito bites were significantly associated with higher numbers of collected adult mosquitoes. These associations were driven by the prevalence of the dominant genera, Culex. These results suggest that surveys of perceived mosquito bites relate to actual mosquito presence, making them a potentially useful tool for determining the impact of vector–control interventions on community perceptions of risk but less useful for assessing the risk of nondominant species such as Aedes aegypti. Further work is needed to examine the robustness of these results in other contexts.