**4. Uts k'oxol: a cross-cultural approach for IIT-SIT**

In Yucatan, Mexico, 43.8% of the population are Mayan speakers and most of them live in Merida and the surrounding villages because of the urbanization, immigration, and economic changes [31–34]. The releasing site of *Wolbachia*-infected mosquitoes, San Pedro Chimay, is part of those communities and the indigenous knowledge of the relationship between society and nature plays a key role in the community. Hence, a cross-cultural approach was considered to design strategies and materials for the engagement and social assessment [15, 16].

In the formative stage of the project (phases I and II, see **Table 1**), anthropological diagnosis and research were performed which aims to validate the feasibility of the community for the activities and the social acceptance of the whole process [15, 16]. To pursue the change of paradigm "from kill to release mosquitoes", the necessity to transform scientific speech of the IIT-SIT methods into more appropriate local linguistic frames, meetings were organized to discuss the best way to achieve this goal. Most of the attendants, elders, and community leaders, acknowledged the value of using the Mayan language to communicate the main messages and goals of the project itself. During extensive discussion sessions about the challenges and benefits, they came out with the idea in the Mayan language of "Uts k'oxol" (translation: uts = good; k'oxol = mosquito) as a cultural-sensitive brand. The novelty of this achievement is that the team and the local leaders, created a new word, even for the indigenous worldview, to introduce IIT-SIT strategy in Yucatan, Mexico.

## **5. Social assessment of perceived benefits and disadvantages**

The social assessment study was conducted in the sub-urban and Mayan indigenous community of San Pedro Chimay, which belongs to the municipality of Merida (capital city), the capital of the state of Yucatan located in the southern region of Mexico. This locality comprises 1246 inhabitants, 646 men and 615 women, and 305 houses [35]. However, the scientific team identified that only 150 dwellings were occupied by families able to participate in the project.

A semi-structured interview was applied to 70 participants heads of family of the community (December 2019 – February 2020). The design included both quantitative and qualitative questions that addressed several topics, such as profile of participants, reasons for participation in the activities, perceived characteristics of both wild and released mosquitoes, and the perception of the benefits and disadvantages of the project. In addition, an ethnographic approach was performed to gather information about the cultural contexts of the social assessment.

The information from the interviews was analyzed in two steps described as follows: quantitative data was processed using Microsoft Excel™ spreadsheets (2019), and qualitative data were explored in MaxQda software (2020). Both results were compared to create categories related to each aspect of the interview. In addition, ethnographic data were systematized within the emerged categories identified in the interviews.

*Community Engagement and Social Assessment for* Wolbachia*-Based Suppression of Natural… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106137*

#### **5.1 Profile of participants**

The semi-structure interview was applied to 70 heads of family in the community, 74.3% (52/70) were women and 25.7% (18/70) were men. 77.1% (54/70) were married, 11.4% (7/70) divorced, 11.4% (8/70) single, and 8.6% (6/70) were widow. About the education level, 57.1% (40/70) had elementary school level, 21.4% (15/70) had middle school, 8.6% (6/70) had high school level, 2.9% (2/70) had bachelor's degree, and 10% (7/70) never went to school. All the participants (100%, 70/70) were both Spanish and Mayan speakers. Spanish was mostly used at workplaces, for traveling, and for business or education activities. In turn, Mayas were used more for domestic and private conversations among adults.

#### **5.2 Engagement and participation in activities**

As part of the engagement process, since the very beginning of the project, people were invited to several activities, such as workshops, community meetings, and educational demonstrations (**Figures 3** and **4**) [15, 16]. However, as expected, not all the families could participate in every phase of the intervention. A 42.9% (30/70) of the interviewed participants reported to be actively involved, while 57.1% (40/70) did not. Here, qualitative data help us to understand this divergence. For the people that embraced the actions and events, they said to recognize the importance of mosquitoborne diseases and they liked to participate in the project. The primary obstacles that the second set of members encountered were a lack of time, health problems, domestic issues, and the fact that they worked all week outside of the community.

This evidence framed a critical situation to achieve the engagement of a whole community, where families just cannot take part in it, regardless of the reasons. This is perhaps the main reason people interviewed asked for more house-to-house visits and the distribution of brochures because for them it is the best mechanism to be informed about the goals, processes, and benefits of the intervention. In words of a housewife and domestic worker woman interviewed, she said:

*"To go to workshops is a luxury of time that I don't have. My family must eat, my kids need to go to school, and this is not an easy thing for me and my family. Here in San Pedro [release-site], there are more women like me, this is real life."*

#### **5.3 Perceived characteristics of wild mosquitoes**

People were asked about the characteristics of the wild mosquitoes that they knew before the project started. 52.9% (37/70) reported that those mosquitoes are transmitters of diseases, 22.9% (16/70) said that mosquitoes do not transmit any disease, and 24.3% (17/70) were not sure about this aspect. A 45.7% (32/70) of participants reported that the female mosquito is responsible for this transmission of diseases, 4.3% (3/70) said the male mosquito, 5.7% (4/70) told both male and female, and 44.3% (31/70) were not sure.

In addition, people's narratives and descriptions of experiences reflected a qualitative pattern emerged, such as "they are black with white stripes on their legs," "it's a big mosquito," "it is called *Ae. aegypti,*" "they are black mosquitoes," "there are female mosquitoes," and "they bite."

A 57.1% (40/70) reported that the female mosquitoes presented a blood-feeding behavior, 7.1% (5/70) identified the male mosquitoes with the same feeding pattern, *Mosquito Research - Recent Advances in Pathogen Interactions, Immunity, and Vector Control…*

**Figure 3.** *Demonstration activity "hand-cage".*

**Figure 4.** *Male mosquito releasing activities with school children.*

5.7% (4/70) believed that both male and female bite for human blood, and 30% (21/70) did not know about it. The information presented is a portrait of the general feature of the *Ae. aegypti*, the main mosquito in the community.
