Trends in the travelers’ demand for pre-travel medical advice at a Spanish International Vaccination Center between 2000 and 2017

Abstract

Crises and disasters affect the numbers of people traveling either for tourism or other reasons. Many studies have been published on the effects of such events on travel, especially on tourism, and based on the arrivals or departures of travelers to or from countries. Our aim was to assess the influence of these events on the demand for pre-travel medical consultation in an International Vaccination Centre (IVC). Data on 94683 international travelers who visited 113529 international destinations attended at the IVC of Malaga (Spain) during 2000–2017 were studied. A descriptive and time series analyses was conducted. The demand to IVC was 3.47 times higher in 2017 than in 2000. The increase has not been the same for all destinations: Travel to South-East Asia and Western Pacific World Health Organization (WHO) regions has multiplied by 10, while in the same period, Africa WHO region has declined from 36% to 20% of total demand. Thailand, India and Brazil were the countries with the highest demand (21% of all pre-travel consultations). We found out three periods, concurrent with some socioeconomic or health events, in which the number of travellers attend decline with respect to the previous years, or the growth was very slow. Growth in the demand for pre-travel medical advice in parallel with a foreseeable increase in the number of travelers is expected. Pre-travel medical services must be adapted to this increase. This study of the trend of demand for pre-travel medical information should new related problems to travel to be identified and quantified, and should assist improvement of policies and programs aimed at care of travelers.

Prevalence of Chronic Diseases among International Travelers Seeking Pretravel Medical Advice in 2018 at Malaga, Spain

“…The reason for the increase could be because of recent improvements in the economic situation because economic crises have clear effects on the number of travelers each year. 7,15 As expected, the frequency of chronic conditions among travelers increased with age, ranging from 6.7% in children younger than 16 years to 66.7% in those older than 65 years. These data are similar to those found by Aubry et al 3 in children younger than 16 years, although the number of travelers older than 60 years with chronic conditions was significantly higher in our study than in Marseilles (27%), Zurich (about 40%), or Galway (56%).…”

“…3,9,10 The high number of travelers (42.4%) to Southeast Asia or the Western Pacific reflects an international positive trend previously described in recent years. 7,11,12 On the other hand, the high number of travelers to the Americas (28.9%), especially to South America, reflects historical and cultural links and language. Almost all travelers to the Americas in this study were going to countries in South or Central America because travelers to Canada or the United States generally do not need specialized travel assistance.…”

“…The expected prevalence (20%) was based on a previous pilot study on 30 participants, and the population was inferred according to a previous study. 7 During the data collection period (3 months), a total of 3,000 travelers were expected. To achieve the required sample size, we used a systematic random sample with a skip interval of 3.…”

Profiles of travelers to intermediate-high health risk areas following the reopening of borders in the COVID-19 crisis: A clustering approach

“…Most papers (in Spain) analyzing the profile of IHHRT travelers before 2020 focus on a reduced set of characteristics (travel destination, motive, duration, age or sex) and none of the them use our methodology [ 29 , 44 , 59 , 60 ]. Aware of these differences, we can compare the averages of several key characteristics (using our results from Table S2 ).…”

“…For instance, in mentioned papers: in Refs. [ 59 , 60 ], the studies were performed in the IVC of Malaga, simmilar to ours ( Appendix 1 ); in Ref. [ 29 ], the analysis was carried out with travelers attending at the USAI BniM travel health clinic in Barcelona, not included in the Spanish Ministry of Health network but similar to our IVC.…”