Synopsis

At the Ottawa County Department of Public Health (OCDPH) in West Michigan, summer is a busy time. Every summer brings festivals, outdoor pool season, a surge of building and selling houses, campgrounds opening, beach swimming, and all the additional bustle of inspections that comes with these activities. Many of these summer events can lead to health repercussions through increased exposures to foodborne illnesses, water-borne illnesses, and vectorborne diseases (VBD), causing a further strain during that time on local health department resources.

Challenge

Unfortunately, OCDPH’s VBD surveillance program was feeling that strain. Since starting our vector surveillance program in 2020, the program often depended on summer intern assistance and OCDPH employees’ spare time to function and complete tasks. Although we were hitting the targets of our VBD surveillance program, we were not developing and growing the program into something that was data driven, community education focused, and sustainable. Nor was the program taking advantage of the data being collected at a local county level. Although we had this data, we were not using it on a regular basis to inform the local public as to specific VBD risks in the area. Altogether, there were multiple areas where the program could grow and improve.

Solution

But things changed when OCDPH was awarded the Vector Control Collaborative (VCC) grant by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) in 2024. By requiring planning, structure, and progress updates, the grant helped us to succeed in creating a sustainable and thriving VBD surveillance program. For the VCC grant, we centered our goals around collaboration and building contacts, program expansion, educational outreach, and data presentation.

First, we wanted to have more internal and external collaboration with anyone that could help us achieve our VBD surveillance goals, this included working with people from other departments within OCDPH, and with people working at Ottawa County Parks, Townships, Cities, and campgrounds. Next, we wanted to expand our VBD surveillance program to include trapping and testing additional mosquitoes and creating educational outreach material for our residents. Finally, we wanted to present our data that we were collecting on a weekly basis, so Ottawa County residents could be aware of VBD risks in the area.

Results

With help from our colleagues and collaborators, our 2024 VBD surveillance program was a large success. We met early on in the year with our Epidemiologist to discuss the need for expanding our VBD surveillance program and where in the county we should place our mosquito traps. New mosquito traps were purchased with the VCC grant funds for our expanded program and surveillance lasted from mid-May to the end of August. Educational material was created targeting tick identification, VBD information and prevention, and standing water reduction. These items, along with additional VBD prevention supplies (tick removing tools and bug spray) were handed out to residents at various outreach events and given to our day camps and campgrounds. As part of the changes and improvements we made to our 2024 VBD surveillance program, we began submitting our trapped mosquitoes to get tested for various VBDs. Every week, a new batch of mosquitoes was sent to Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services’ Bureau of Laboratories, and every week results from the previous week was made available. Because we wanted to make sure that Ottawa County residents had access to these results, a Weekly VBD Report was created focusing on providing the community with real-time data and information based on our surveillance results.

Lessons Learned

The VCC grant helped OCDPH transform our VBD surveillance program into something manageable, sustainable, and community orientated. But it took a lot of initial effort and dedication to lay the foundation. The time dedicated to working on the VCC grant was a little surprising since we were not starting from square one and had been doing vector surveillance since 2020. The additional administration, organization, and implementation that accompanies a grant does need to be accounted for during the planning period. If a grantee would like to be paid for all of their time spent working on the grant, be sure to budget appropriately.

Another lesson that we learned along the way of working on the VCC grant was to have a clear understanding of the direction of your grant goals before committing to them on paper and creating a budget. Since our direction shifted, we did end up needing to revise our budget. This could have been avoided if we had our initial planning meetings earlier and focused on what was practical for our county.

Contact Information

Alison Clark
Public Health Communication Specialist, OCDPH
[email protected]