Dynamics of bed bug infestations and control under disclosure policies.

ABSTRACT: Bed bugs have reemerged in the United States and worldwide over recent decades, presenting a major challenge to both public health practitioners and housing authorities. A number of municipalities have proposed or initiated policies to stem the bed bug epidemic, but little guidance is available to evaluate them. One contentious policy is disclosure, whereby landlords are obligated to notify potential tenants of current or prior bed bug infestations. Aimed to protect tenants from leasing an infested rental unit, disclosure also creates a kind of quarantine, partially and temporarily removing infested units from the market. Here, we develop a mathematical model for the spread of bed bugs in a generalized rental market, calibrate it to parameters of bed bug dispersion and housing turnover, an

SUBMITTER: Xie S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6442569 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature