Public Health
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Public health and wasp sting prevention
Wasp stings can be classed as a public health issue as they cause ill health on a large scale and death on a small scale. Any such death is clearly preventable and premature, sometimes losing many years of family, and work, life. Wasp stings also result in unnecessary and high costs to health services.
The level of serious systemic allergy to wasp stings is not known but some estimates put it quite high. A way imagining the level of allergy is to think of the staff and pupils of a large primary school (or any similar sized group of people e.g. a factory workforce) where there may be one seriously allergic person. So - in a medium to large sized town on a pleasant summer weekend afternoon there may be at least one person barbecuing, picnicking, walking in the park or eating ice-cream that could become very ill if stung by a wasp. Fortunately, most of the stings that happen in such situations are to people who are not seriously allergic.
In England, in 2004, the chances of dying from a wasp sting were less than 1 in several million as there were 8 deaths from wasp stings. The comment “More chance of winning the lottery than being killed by a wasp!” is mathematically (i.e. statistically) correct.
The cost of wasp stings to the health service is high: out of hours emergency services and GP practices are flooded with people concerned about stings for several months of the year. Concerns include swelling in the mouth and throat from swallowing a wasp, swollen eyelids from facial stings, constricted blood flow from tight rings on a swollen finger, and infection at the site of a sting (perhaps due to scratching). Carrying adrenalin for self injecting when you have only experienced a significant local reaction is unnecessary and not carrying such equipment if you are systemically allergic could prove fatal.
Public health is compromised by the following:
- High level of risky behaviour
- Unknown level of serious allergy
- High level of stings to mouth, face and neck
- High level of occupational health risk
- Extreme risk to life from multiple stings from wasp nest disturbance
- Increase in wasp populations with global warming
How to prevent and treat wasp stings should be common knowledge and not accessed through internet searching after a sting occurs. Although there is some excellent advice on treatment available on the internet, some of it is poor quality being incomplete, muddled with advice on bee stings, tick bites and insect bites or little more than folklore.
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Any occupation working with either the smell of food or with disturbance of habitats where there may be wasps is at high risk from wasp stings.
The following lists are not exhaustive but give some indication of employers and employees who should take special measures to protect against, and give prompt treatment for, wasp stings. People who may disturb wasp nests in the course of their work are at higher risk of multiple stings than those working with food smells. Multiple stings can be life threatening in the absence of systemic allergy. Prompt medical care should always be obtained for multiple stings.
Occupations working with food smells
- Shop assistants
- Food outlets
- Bin men
- Ice cream sales
- Cleaners
- Land fill & Council tip workers
Occupations disturbing potential wasp nests and flower foraging
- Groundsmen
- Farmers
- Verge cutters
- Builders
- Land fill & Council tip workers
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Field trips are taken here to be organised formal activities run by, for example, an educational institution. The advice given here will assist organisers in protecting field trip participants. Also field trip education should contribute to skills development and a focus on wasp sting prevention is both good role modelling and protective behaviour for later life.
Leader responsibilities
- Field trip preparation and briefing of participants
- Knowledge of signs and symptoms of systemic allergy (anaphylaxis)
- Knowledge of threat from wasp stings in oro-pharyngeal area
- Allergic participants should not walk alone
- Carry phone
- Teach, and role model, appropriate social behaviour such as not flapping arms, not panicking, walking away
Prior to field trip
- Ask about allergy to insects (specifically stings)
- Discuss protective behaviour during field trip
- Advice about packed lunch i.e. how to avoid wasps being attracted before, during, and after eating and drinking (use of juice boxes or bottles with lids, tight lids or bags for food and food remains), checking before each mouthful
- Advice about wearing shoes and socks (not sandals) and long sleeves with trousers
- Advice about shaking things before storage e.g. clothes placed on ground
- Discuss avoidance of mimicry of flower scent or colour in clothes or skin products. Advise avoidance of shiny or bright colours including buckles & jewellery, floral patterns and black. Preferred colours are white, green and khaki
- Consider insect repellent containing DEET
- Request to be informed immediately about stings
- Suggest participants may wish to carry antihistamine for self administration
Activity related to field trip
- Teach simple means for distinguishing between wasps, hoverflies and bees
- Be aware of wasp nests in previously undisturbed shrubbery and log piles
- Teach biological approach to dealing with insects that might sting e.g. wasp will move to the light (e.g. vehicle window), away from attractive food smells and towards wasp under attack or crushed
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Development of this website began in 2007 after finding the previous year that there were several problems with internet advice on the specific treatment of wasp stings and the realisation that the need to prevent wasp stings was a largely neglected topic. For reference material see Publications.
Advice on the internet is complicated by the following:
- The absence of a list of treatment advice that is complete
- The confusing range of reactions from acute pain, local allergic response and infection to potential death from systemic allergy
- Potential bias in sting aftercare given alongside advertisements for products to kill or deter wasps and products to treat stings
- Websites with useful information submerged in lengthy information on science or pest control
- Websites dealing simultaneously with, and therefore confusing, insect bites and insect stings
- Undifferentiated sting aftercare for wasps and bees
- Preferential search terms: “bee + sting” results in more useful hits about wasps than “wasp + sting”
- Occasionally treatment of stings is placed alongside advice on jelly fish and scorpions.