What is most impressive about the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Joint Bed Bug Task Force Strategic Plan is the breadth and accuracy of the analysis. We can’t solve a problem that we don’t understand—and it’s clear that committed and intelligent people in Cincinnati and Hamilton County correctly analyzed the issues.
They obviously get the basic things right, like for example the simple fact that an infestations map, even one maintained by their public health departments, will be a flawed representation of the total number and location of infestations (p. 16):
While this map is somewhat informative, it is important to remember that not all bed bug infestations are reported to the health department in the city and county. In fact, based on data from other cities, it is expected that the majority of bed bug infestations will be treated by pest control operators without being reported to a health department. Therefore, these maps may merely show the distribution of bed bug infestations in lower income areas, rather than the true number and distribution of infestations in the city or county.
Emphasis added.
I assure you that something like this is not immediately obvious to many. I know we may look at the New York City bed bug statistics of HPD-tracked bed bug complaints, the breakdown by community districts, and we may think of our neighborhoods with corresponding relief or alarm.
Perhaps you remember the map published by the New York Times in 2006? You can see it here. It accompanied this article.
You can pretty much lose yourself in the color-coded risk calculation trap that is that map! If you were to make assumptions about bed bug-free neighborhoods, however, you’d be courting serious error.
New York vs Bed Bugs advocates the tracking of bed bug infestations in New York City. We believe that bed bug complaint statistics should be available to the public as part of Local Law 47 reports. Moreover, we believe there should be a non-adversarial reporting system for bed bug infestations in our city. We need a clear picture of the scope of the problem.
These pages may be of related interest:
