From buckets to backyards: a typology of community-based copepod interventions for Aedes vector control-a narrative...

Biological control using copepods, predatory freshwater crustaceans, has been explored as a strategy for suppressing Aedes mosquito larvae in domestic water containers. Although predation efficacy has been documented in laboratory and field settings, less attention has been given to how community-based copepod interventions are organised, delivered, monitored, and sustained under routine conditions. To support operational planning and adaptation, clearer insight is needed into how programmes mobilise communities, produce and distribute copepods, and maintain coverage over time.

We conducted a narrative, purposive synthesis of published and grey literature, complemented by the authors' field experience in Asia and Latin America. Sources were considered when they described field-based copepod deployments with sufficient operational detail to inform comparison of production arrangements, distribution channels, community roles, monitoring routines, or replenishment mechanisms. Using iterative cross-case comparison, we identified recurrent implementation configurations and organised them into a provisional typology of delivery models.

Documented approaches include centralised public-health-led programmes, community-facilitated support and rearing systems, household-maintained post-programme approaches, and market-oriented or microenterprise pathways. Across settings, interventions differed in where copepods were produced, who placed them into containers, how communities participated, and how monitoring and replenishment were organised. The evidence base is uneven: centralised public health programmes are the most extensively documented, whereas household-led continuation and market-oriented approaches are less consistently reported and should be interpreted more cautiously. Cost information was limited and difficult to compare across contexts, with total programme costs shaped by staffing, training, monitoring intensity, transport, and facilitation requirements.

This narrative review proposes a heuristic typology for describing and comparing implementation modalities of community-based copepod deployment for Aedes vector control. Rather than identifying a single preferred model, the framework clarifies organisational choices that influence operational continuity, including production, last-mile delivery, community engagement, monitoring, and replenishment. Making these delivery architectures explicit can support better reporting, planning, adaptation, and evaluation of copepod-based interventions within integrated vector management.