Abstract: The Pesticide Use and Resistance Monitoring (PURM) Branch is housed in the Environmental Health Sciences and Engineering Directorate of the U.S. Army Public Health Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. The mission of the PURM Branch is to advance the readiness and health of Army personnel and communities by assessing and monitoring entomological public health threats resulting from pesticide use; providing consultative expertise; communicating solutions; and providing support to optimize the Army's Public Health Enterprise. To work toward this mission, the development of a mosquito insecticide resistance (IR) program for Army installations in the Continental United States (CONUS) was revived in 2018 with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Bottle Bioassay as the staple testing mechanism. Marketing and communication efforts have been integral to standing up the program, which, despite logistical complications unique to the military, is actively generating data and is planning to incorporate enzymatic tests in Fiscal Year 2023. The program’s challenges and successes, as well as future plans for mosquito IR testing in the Army, will be discussed.
