Vector-borne disease surveillance and control resource needs in Colorado public health organizations

Since 2002, Colorado has experienced a high vector-borne disease (VBD) burden from diseases like West Nile fever, plague, and tularemia. Recent evidence underscores a lack of vector-borne surveillance and control program capacity across public health organizations, prompting our evaluation of funding and resource needs for such programs in Colorado. We assessed the needs, organizational capacity, and mitigation strategies of Colorado public health organizations' VBD programs using a convergent mixed methods study design. Between January and May 2024, we surveyed and interviewed key public health organizations leaders. Findings were determined through mixed methods integration of survey data, thematic analysis on interviews, and content analysis on financial and policy documents. Overall, 28 public health practitioners (35% response rate) at 24 Colorado public health organizations (63% urban, 25% rural, 13% frontier counties) were surveyed and 18 were interviewed. We found only 37.5% of Colorado's public health organizations conducted vector surveillance for any vector species. Smaller rural and frontier communities (