Packham C J
J Public Health Med. 1995 Jun;17(2):217-22. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.pubmed.a043096.
Travel-associated illness affects at least 25 per cent of UK residents who travel abroad each year. Notified cases form only a small proportion of the total community burden of disease but nevertheless represent a substantial workload for community infection control services. The aim of the study was to describe the incidence of notified travel-associated infectious illness, the extent and sources of travel health advice, and the nature of risk-avoiding behaviour in that population.
A questionnaire survey was carried out of 190 consecutive notifications of food poisoning and malaria over a nine-month period where travel abroad was an identifiable factor.
The incidence of notified travel-associated food poisoning during the study period was 204 per million resident population per year. Thirteen per cent of respondents reported taking no precautions against food poisoning, and up to 75 per cent of the cases could have taken better precautions. Only 36 per cent of cases recalled advice from their travel agent. Half the cases did not visit their general practitioner before travel (20 per cent of travellers to high-risk destinations). There was a strong association between receiving advice before travelling and risk-avoiding behaviour. The source of advice did not appear to affect the extent of precautions taken. The cases clearly expressed a need for additional written travel health information in the appropriate style and language for their ethnic group. Ethnic minority cases utilized official travel health advice to the same extent as the Caucasian cases.
In this case series, 75 per cent of travellers did not take sufficient basic precautions against infection. There was a need to improve advice about simple precautions to avoid infection. General practice was the commonest source of advice for the travellers in this study. The apparently low level of advice from travel agents needs to be addressed in any local initiative to improve the health of travellers.
与旅行相关的疾病影响着每年至少25%出国旅行的英国居民。通报的病例仅占社区疾病总负担的一小部分，但仍给社区感染控制服务带来了大量工作。本研究的目的是描述通报的与旅行相关的传染病的发病率、旅行健康建议的范围和来源，以及该人群中避免风险行为的性质。
对在九个月期间连续通报的190例食物中毒和疟疾病例进行问卷调查，其中出国旅行是一个可识别的因素。
研究期间通报的与旅行相关的食物中毒发病率为每年每百万居民204例。13%的受访者表示未采取预防食物中毒的措施，高达75%的病例本可以采取更好的预防措施。只有36%的病例回忆起从旅行社获得过建议。一半的病例在旅行前未去看全科医生（前往高风险目的地的旅行者中有20%）。旅行前接受建议与避免风险行为之间存在密切关联。建议的来源似乎不影响所采取预防措施的程度。这些病例明确表示需要以适合其种族群体的风格和语言提供更多书面旅行健康信息。少数族裔病例与白种人病例一样充分利用了官方旅行健康建议。
在这个病例系列中，75%的旅行者未采取足够的基本预防感染措施。有必要改进关于避免感染的简单预防措施的建议。全科医疗是本研究中旅行者最常见的建议来源。在任何旨在改善旅行者健康的地方举措中，都需要解决旅行社提供的建议明显不足的问题。
