Straight answers from a licensed New York exterminator and Associate Certified Entomologist (ACE) — serving all five boroughs, in English and Spanish.
Get a Free Estimate →⏱ 10 min read
Part of our entomology certification hub comparing the ACE, PHE, and BCE credentials.
Quick answer: The Public Health Entomology (PHE) Certificate is a professional credential from the Entomological Society of America’s certifying body, developed with the American Mosquito Control Association, for people who manage pests that threaten human health — the vectors of disease. To earn it you need about five years of pest-management or vector-control experience (less with a relevant degree), a current U.S. pesticide applicator’s license, two professional references, and a passing score on a 150-question, closed-book, proctored online exam (75% to pass). Unlike the ACE credential, the PHE Certificate has no continuing-education renewal — once you pass, it’s yours. This guide walks through every requirement and the medical-entomology knowledge the exam demands.
Try our free PHE practice exam — original medical-entomology questions weighted like the real exam, with instant scoring and explanations.
The top ESA credential: see our guide to the Board Certified Entomologist (BCE) and its free practice exams.
This guide is a companion to our guide to becoming an Associate Certified Entomologist (ACE). Where the ACE credential is about structural pest management, the PHE Certificate is about public health — the mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, lice, flies, and other arthropods that carry disease. It is written by Jorge Bedoya, ACE, for pest and vector professionals who want to specialize in the health side of the field.
What the PHE Certificate is — and who issues it
The Public Health Entomology Certificate is a voluntary credential issued by the ESA Certification Corporation, the certifying arm of the Entomological Society of America, and it was developed in partnership with and is endorsed by the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA). It recognizes professionals who work with pests that pose a health risk — whether by transmitting disease or by causing other harm such as severe allergic reactions.
ESA deliberately calls the PHE a certificate rather than a certification. The practical difference matters: certifications like the ACE and BCE require ongoing continuing education to stay current, while the PHE Certificate does not. Once you pass, you may use “PHE Certificate Holder” after your name and you receive a digital marketing kit. It is currently offered in the United States.
Why public-health entomology matters
Vector-borne diseases account for a huge share of the world’s illness. Mosquitoes alone transmit malaria, dengue, Zika, chikungunya, yellow fever, and West Nile virus; ticks transmit Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and more; fleas historically carried plague. Even non-vectoring pests matter: cockroach allergens are a leading trigger of childhood asthma. A public-health entomologist is the professional who identifies these threats, monitors them, and designs the least-hazardous effective way to reduce them. The PHE Certificate is how you prove that expertise.
Eligibility requirements
For a working pest or vector professional without an entomology degree, the core requirements are:
- Experience: a minimum of five years of verifiable U.S. experience in pest management or vector control — and the two can be combined to reach five years.
- License: a current U.S. state, military, territorial, or tribal pesticide applicator’s license or certificate that permits unsupervised application and that requires continuing education to stay current (if your state doesn’t require CE, that piece is waived).
- References: two letters of professional reference speaking to your professionalism, entomological knowledge, and ethics.
- Ethics: a willingness to adhere to the PHE Certificate Code of Ethics.
- The exam: the ability to pass the online proctored exam.
A relevant degree reduces the experience requirement: a bachelor’s in entomology or a related life science lowers it to three years, a master’s to two years, and a PhD to one year of post-degree U.S. experience. If you already hold the ACE, you don’t file a separate application — you contact ESA to add the PHE.
The PHE exam: format and structure
The exam is closed-book, online, and proctored — a proctor stays in the room the whole time. It is 150 questions, a mix of multiple-choice and true/false, taken in a single sitting of three hours or less. The passing score is 75%. ESA recommends a minimum of 40 hours of self-study regardless of how long you’ve been in the industry — this is not an exam you can cram for, because it spans a wide body of medical-entomology knowledge. If you don’t pass, you can retake it no sooner than 30 days and no later than 365 days later.
The four exam domains
Like the ACE exam, the PHE exam is weighted across four competency domains:
- Inspection & Identification — 45% (identifying the vectors and health-threatening arthropods and reading their evidence)
- Monitoring — 12% (vector surveillance: traps, indices, and tracking)
- Selection & Implementation of Control Methods — 28% (integrated vector management)
- Evaluation — 15% (verifying that control worked and interpreting surveillance)
The difference from the ACE exam isn’t the structure — it’s the content. Where the ACE exam covers structural pests, the PHE exam fills these four domains with medical and public-health entomology. A widely used study course organizes that content into nine topic areas, described next.
The nine knowledge areas you must master
Study for the PHE is usually organized around nine content areas, which map into the four exam domains above:
1. Classification & morphology
Arthropod taxonomy for public health: insects (six legs, three body regions, antennae) versus arachnids (eight legs, two body regions, no antennae — remember tick larvae have only six legs), the vector-relevant orders (flies, fleas, lice, true bugs, cockroaches, bees and wasps), mouthpart types, and complete versus incomplete metamorphosis. This is where you learn to tell an Anopheles mosquito (rests head-down at an angle) from a Culex or Aedes.
2. Stinging insects
Bees, wasps, yellowjackets, hornets, and fire ants; venom and anaphylaxis; why honey bees sting once and die while wasps sting repeatedly; Africanized honey bees; and scorpions such as the Arizona bark scorpion.
3. Biting insects and ectoparasites
Fleas (the oriental rat flea and plague), lice (only the body louse transmits disease — epidemic typhus, trench fever, relapsing fever), bed bugs (a nuisance, not a proven disease vector), and kissing bugs (Chagas disease).
4. Dipteran insects — the big one
Mosquitoes and flies: Anopheles and malaria; Aedes aegypti and dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever; Culex and West Nile virus; plus sand flies (leishmaniasis), black flies (river blindness), tsetse flies (sleeping sickness), and filth flies (mechanical spread of enteric bacteria). Mosquito life cycle, larval habitats, and source reduction live here.
5. Cockroaches
The common species and their two public-health roles: mechanical carriage of enteric pathogens and, importantly, being potent sources of allergens that trigger asthma, especially in children.
6. Related arthropods
Ticks (Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichiosis, and the lone star tick’s alpha-gal red-meat allergy), mites (chiggers and scrub typhus, Sarcoptes and scabies, dust-mite allergens), and medically important spiders (black widow, brown recluse).
7. Public health entomology principles
The vocabulary of the field: vector, reservoir, and host; mechanical versus biological transmission; vector competence and vectorial capacity; the disease triangle; zoonoses; the One Health approach; and the history — Ronald Ross and malaria, Walter Reed and Carlos Finlay and yellow fever.
8. Inspection & monitoring
Vector surveillance: CDC light traps, gravid traps, and BG-Sentinel and ovitraps for mosquitoes; tick drags; fly spot cards; and the Aedes larval indices — House Index, Container Index, and the Breteau Index.
9. Selection & implementation of control
Integrated vector management: source reduction first, then larviciding (Bti and the growth regulator methoprene) before adulticiding, biological control (mosquitofish and copepods), personal protection (DEET and picaridin on skin, permethrin on clothing, bed nets and indoor residual spraying for malaria), pesticide classes and resistance, and the label-is-the-law basics of FIFRA and the EPA.
“Structural pest work protects your property. Public-health entomology protects your life. When you understand that a single species of mosquito decides whether a neighborhood sees West Nile virus, you stop thinking about spraying and start thinking about surveillance, standing water, and biology. That shift in thinking is what the PHE really certifies.”
— Jorge Bedoya, Associate Certified Entomologist (ACE), New York Exterminating
Renewal: the key difference from the ACE
Here is where the PHE stands apart. The PHE Certificate has no continuing-education requirement and no renewal cycle — once you pass the exam, your certificate is valid with no maintenance (ESA recommends reviewing the content outline every few years to stay current, but that’s advice, not a requirement). Compare that to the ACE, which is a certification that renews every three years and requires at least 18 continuing-education units plus a renewal fee. If you want a credential you earn once, the PHE’s structure is uniquely convenient.
Recommended study materials
ESA recommends the ACE study guide, IPM for the Urban Professional, as a foundation. Because the PHE is medical-entomology heavy, most candidates add a dedicated public-health course (the University of Nebraska–Lincoln offers a well-known PHE preparation course) plus standard references such as Mike Service’s Medical Entomology for Students and the Mallis Handbook of Pest Control. Free, authoritative primary sources — the CDC’s vector-borne disease pages and WHO fact sheets — are excellent for the disease-and-pathogen material, and they’re exactly what our PHE practice exam is built from.
PHE vs. ACE vs. BCE
The Entomological Society of America offers three credentials, and they serve different professionals. The PHE Certificate is public-health and vector focused, needs about five years of experience, uses a 150-question closed-book proctored exam, and never expires. The ACE (Associate Certified Entomologist) is structural-pest focused, renews every three years with continuing education, and is the natural credential for a residential or commercial exterminator. The BCE (Board Certified Entomologist) is ESA’s most rigorous, broadly-scoped credential, usually pursued by degreed entomologists, with specialty exams and ongoing professional maintenance. Many professionals earn the ACE first and add the PHE to demonstrate public-health expertise.
A Brooklyn-based, NYSDEC-registered company (Reg. #15140) led by Jorge Bedoya, an Associate Certified Entomologist (ACE). For pests in your home or building, NYE provides IPM-based, low-exposure control matched to the exact pest and verified with a follow-up. ACE-led work comes with a client portal of service reports and photos, fully bilingual service, and no long-term contract.
Public Health Entomology Certificate FAQ
Is the PHE the same as the ACE?
No. Both come from the Entomological Society of America and share the same four-domain exam structure, but the ACE covers structural pest management while the PHE covers public-health and vector entomology. The ACE renews every three years with CEUs; the PHE has no renewal.
How many questions is the PHE exam and what’s the passing score?
The exam is 150 questions — multiple-choice and true/false — taken closed-book and proctored online in three hours or less, and you need 75% to pass.
Do I need a college degree to earn the PHE?
No. Five years of pest-management or vector-control experience plus a qualifying pesticide applicator’s license and two references will qualify you. A relevant degree reduces the experience requirement (a PhD drops it to one year).
Does the PHE Certificate expire?
No. Unlike the ACE, the PHE Certificate has no continuing-education requirement and no renewal — once you pass, it’s valid indefinitely.
What should I study first?
Medical entomology: the vectors and the diseases they carry. Master the vector-to-disease-to-pathogen relationships (Anopheles to malaria to Plasmodium, and so on), mosquito and tick identification and biology, and integrated vector management. Then drill with a practice exam.
Put it to the test: take our free PHE practice exam — original questions weighted across the four exam domains with instant explanations — or read the companion guide to becoming an ACE. Written by Jorge Bedoya, ACE.
