Great idea, Rebecca!

I'd recommend putting together a plan for your city to better manage this spreading epidemic.  (If your city has one, or other cities intrigue you, heck, please do one for NYC!)

Some localities like Lexington, KY, and San Francisco have plans.  (Deb posted SF's document yesterday).  Other cities, like NYC, prefer to sit back and pretend it is not serious and will go away.
So it seems like drawing up a proposal for guidelines for health professionals, landlords, PCOs, homeowners, teachers, waste management, resale shops, and so on, as well as step-by-step infromation for sufferers (like that in the SF document) for another city, based on its particular situation, might be useful.  Perhaps not terribly original, but something every city will need to do.  And being an expert on bed bugs, of a sort, you can set the bar higher for up to date information.

What would be really groundbreaking, to me, is a study of where this bug is in a particular city.  I blogged yesterday on the bedbugger blog (URL below) about the CDC's article on Toronto in 2003--which identified infestations treated during the year in that city.  I'd love to see someone do that in Toronto, NYC, or anywhere else.  We need to know what's going on.  And only PCOs have legit data on this, since city agencies get only sporadic reports.
That would involve quantitative data, but it would not be data you'd have to manipulate much (the Toronto data was along the lines of 847 infestations treated by PCOs that year -- they just asked them all).  Not sure if that would be within your scope, but it's an idea.

Kate


insert_clevername <insert_clevername@...> wrote:

I am a graduate student, working towards my Master of Environment. My thesis topic is
about hyacinth macaw conservation, however I'm not that far into my research, and I don't
mind changing it at this point. I am pondering changing it to a bedbug related topic. It
would be really helpful, because I didn't do anything in October OTHER than research
bedbugs.

However, this is where I am a bit lost. I have very little science background. I have done all
my studying over the past six years in rural community resource management, international
policy implications of animal trafficking, the links of animal trafficking to the drug trade and
traditional asian medicines and animal trafficking (as you can tell, I've focussed primarily on
animal trafficking). I was wondering if maybe I could get a little imput from this group to see
if you maybe had some ideas about what areas of bedbugs, etc are lacking, that don't have to
do with pesticide applications. Like I said, I'm a policy girl, I do not do any quantitative
research, only qualitative.

Any suggestions for me? Anything non-scientific you feel needs to be improved? It has to be
environment related. Any help would be very appreciated.

I would be particularly interested in what the entomologists on the list have to say...

nobugsonme@...

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