Pretravelling Health-Seeking Behavior, Knowledge of Vaccines, and Attitudes Toward Travel Health among Malaysian Travelers

• Published in: International journal of preventive medicine 2022-01, Vol.13 (1), p.50-50
• Main Authors: B Sidek Ahmad, Zulkhairul Naim, Zarkasi, Khairul Anwar, Ramli, Nur Zuliani, Che Jamaludin, Farrah Ilyani, Che Hasan, Muhammad Kamil
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Original
• ISSN: 2008-7802; 2008-8213
• DOI: 10.4103/ijpvm.IJPVM_365_20

Travelers are at higher risk of developing health-related problems, especially travel-related diseases, and this remains a major public health burden. To assess pretravel health behavior-seeking factors, knowledge of vaccine, and travel health attitudes. A cross-sectional design among Malaysian travelers. An online survey was conducted from December 2017 till March 2018 among 226 participants. Demographic data, pretraveling health behaviors, knowledge of vaccine-preventable diseases, and travel health were asked. Independent -test and ANOVA were performed using SPSS version 20. Among travelers, 51.3% and 63.7% used health-related information on their destination before departure and collected information on possible travel hazards at their destination. Participant age ( = 0.02), monthly income ( = 0.01), predeparture health information ( = 0.03), information on possible hazards ( = 0.04), and travel health advice from medical professionals ( = 0.03) have been reported as a major predictor of knowledge of vaccine-preventable disease. Travelers' gender ( = 0.01), household income ( = 0.01), and travel health advice from professionals ( = 0.002) were significantly associated with travel health attitude. Sociodemographic and pretravel health-seeking behavior influence knowledge of vaccine-preventable disease and attitudes towards travel health which requires a public health need for community outreach programs targeting this group.