ABSTRACT
Structure, organization, and classification issues Every state-level public health department needs a medical or public health entomology group or section, consisting of one or more entomologists or public health biologists. This need may extend to city or county health departments as well, or pest abatement districts, especially along the coast or in areas with considerable vector-borne disease problems. The first thing that must be decided is where to put the entomologist(s), that is, what department, division, section, or branch. In the early days of public health departments, entomologists were mostly placed within sanitation departments or sanitary engineering groups,1 but now, in most states, they are housed in the epidemiology/ communicable disease group, the vector-borne disease group, the environmental health group, or some combination thereof. For example, in Tennessee, the public health entomologist position is located within Communicable and Environmental Disease Services; in Michigan, the zoonotic disease biologist is assigned to the Division of Communicable Disease; and in Mississippi, the medical entomologist is placed in the Office of Environmental Health.
