The role of citizen science in mosquito-borne disease surveillance and control: A scoping review

BACKGROUND: Mosquito-borne diseases (MBDs) pose substantial global health and economic burdens. Although conventional MBDs surveillance systems remain essential, they are often resource-intensive, uneven in coverage, and often insufficiently responsive to spatio-temporal variations in mosquito presence and risk. Citizen science, increasingly enabled by mobile and digital technologies, offers a scalable complement to expand surveillance reach and timeliness. However, existing reviews have not comprehensively integrated evidence across diverse dimensions of citizen science applied to MBDs surveillance and control. METHODS: We conducted a systematic search of PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, and Web of Science from January 1, 2000, to October 17, 2025, to identify peer-reviewed studies examining citizen science applications in MBDs surveillance and control. Data were extracted and synthesized on study characteristics, participation objectives, recruitment strategies, citizen-generated data and technologies, validation mechanisms, effort-bias handling, analytical approaches, public health outputs, reported biases and methodological limitations, and ethical and governance practices. RESULTS: Of 3,734 records identified, 61 studies met inclusion criteria, with most published after 2017 (93.4%). Studies were conducted in Europe (44.3%) and the Americas (21.3%), with minimal representation from Asia (3.3%). Malaria-related surveillance was most common (23.0%), followed by dengue (13.1%), with other mosquito-borne diseases examined only sporadically, including West Nile virus (4.9%), Usutu virus (1.6%), La Crosse virus (1.6%), and California serogroup viruses (1.6%). Most studies were conducted in urban settings (47.5%), followed by mixed urban-rural contexts (36.1%), with relatively few exclusively in rural areas (18.0%). Mosquito Alert was the most frequently reported platform (23.0%), followed by GLOBE Observer (13.1%) and iNaturalist (11.5%). Commonly reported outputs included trend analyses (52.5%), risk-factor identification (44.3%), spatial predictions (42.6%), hotspot mapping (19.7%), and risk modeling (16.4%). Reporting of ethical and governance practices was inconsistent across studies. CONCLUSIONS: The growing body of evidence indicates that citizen science can enhance mosquito surveillance, particularly for monitoring invasive species and spatio-temporal trends. Nevertheless, gaps in methodological rigor, representativeness, and ethical transparency limit its broader operational use.