Knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards mosquito control and used vehicle tire dumping by median household income, in metropolitan New Orleans, Louisiana

Abstract

Background Discarded vehicle tires are an important artificial habitat for the larvae of many container-breeding mosquito species worldwide, including in the United States. Unmanaged discarded vehicle tires create health, environmental and social costs, and with budget and staffing constraints, effective management of discarded used vehicle tires a mosquito larval habitat depends in part on the knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) of community residents. Objectives This study aims to examine the knowledge, attitude and practices of New Orleans, Louisiana residents toward illegally discarded vehicle tires, and larval mosquito control. Methods A descriptive cross-sectional design study was used where 422 households were selected using a two-stage cluster random sampling procedure in New Orleans, Louisiana. Heads of households or a person aged 18 years or older self-administered the survey. The questionnaire comprised five parts: screening, tire sightings, preferred communication method, knowledge, attitude and precautionary measures against mosquito control, disease risk and illegal discarding. We then statistically compared above and below median income household responses to identify likely causes of detected differences. The data were analyzed using ordinal regression models via IBM SPSS statistics V.26.0. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Results Out of 290 responding households, 95.5% strongly agree or agree that mosquitoes can spread serious diseases like West Nile, Zika or Dengue. Only 2.3% of the sample had high knowledge of illegally discarded tires dumping and mosquito larval control. Those employed were 1.0 times more likely to possess good knowledge than the unemployed (p < 0.001). Despite low knowledge levels regarding mosquito breeding and polluted water in discarded tires, 29.9% of respondents had positive attitude and 20.5% reported sufficient practices. Among the socio-demographic variables, only home ownership and being employed were predictors of knowledge and attitude towards mosquito breeding in illegally discarded tires (p < 0.05). Conclusions Despite the observed increasing number of illegally discarded vehicle tires in New Orleans, the knowledge of people about illegal tire dumping and their associated risk factors as suitable larval habitants was low. Therefore, there is a need for developing community-based and place-based tailored sensitization campaigns to prevent illegal used tire dumping, and larval control.