Earth scientist at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Dr. Russane ‘Rusty’ Low, has said that citizen science initiatives will be critical to reducing vector-borne diseases in the Caribbean region.
Speaking at various venues during her first trip to Jamaica, facilitated by the US Embassy’s Speaker Programme, Dr Low shared on the importance of engaging the general public in the work of the scientific community.
Dr Low explained that with climate change anticipated to worsen the impact of vector related illnesses and spread them beyond the traditional warm weather locales, there is a need more than ever before to engage citizens.
“These last two years have been a really serious set of years for dengue. In 2023 and 2024 we’ve seen cases of dengue in the Americas that have never been seen before, so an exponential rise in the numbers of cases and to some degree this is because of the unique climate conditions we have right now with the El Nino atmospheric conditions,” explained Dr. Low to an audience of vector control workers in Montego Bay.
“Vector control workers, as you know, can’t do it alone. We must encourage agency among the citizenry to take on the very simple task of getting rid of water habitats; which is where mosquitoes like to lay their eggs. It sounds like it doesn’t make a difference, until they understand that the mosquito that carries diseases such as dengue, zika and chikungunya – the aedes aegypti- are poor fliers and often spend their entire lifetime in a 10 meter radius -which means a simple action like getting rid of standing water can have a huge impact,” added Dr. Low.
According to Dr.Low activating citizens can be done through various ways such as open science concepts and data practices.
Low used the occasion to share that one way citizens are already participating is through the use of the GLOBE Mosquito Habitat Mapper mobile application.
Created by NASA, the application enables citizen scientist in 128 countries to collect, share and access environmental data to support scientific research and global public health diplomacy.
“Applications like GLOBE, practically help to build up the body of data on a subject matter. And having large amounts of data is what actually helps us to move forward in the fight against diseases and illnesses,” Low added.
Globe Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) is an international science and education programme aimed at promoting scientific literacy in the earth and environmental sciences.
Jamaica is not yet a part of the GLOBE program.
