Demographics, health and travel characteristics of international travellers at a pre-travel clinic in Marseille, France

Camille Aubry (1, 2) , Jean Gaudart (3, 1) , Catherine Gaillard (4) , Jean Delmont (5) , Philippe Parola (2) , Philippe Brouqui (6, 2) , Philippe Gautret (2)

1 AMU - Aix Marseille Université
2 URMITE - Unité de Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales Emergentes
3 SESSTIM - U912 INSERM - Aix Marseille Univ - IRD - Sciences Economiques et Sociales de la Santé & Traitement de l'Information Médicale
4 BIA - Unité de recherche sur les Biopolymères, Interactions Assemblages
5 AMU MED - Aix-Marseille Université - Faculté de médecine
6 Hôpital Nord [CHU - APHM]

With the aim to identify at-risk individuals among a cohort of international travellers , 3442 individuals who sought advice at Marseille travel health centre in 2009 were prospectively included. Demographics, travel characteristics, chronic medical conditions, vaccinations and antimalarial chemoprophylaxis were documented. Chronic medical conditions were reported by 11% of individuals, including hypertension (39%), asthma (20%), thyroid disease (15%) and depression (13%). 4% reported taking a daily medication, and psychotropic and cardiovascular medications were the most commonly used. Older travellers (60 years) accounted for 10% of the travellers and the prevalence of chronic medical conditions was 27% in this group. Individuals aged 15 years or less accounted for 13% of the travellers. Age, last minute travel (17%) and neurological and psychiatric diseases were the most frequent factors that influenced Yellow fever vaccination and malaria chemoprophylaxis, with more than one tenth of the travellers reporting at least one risk factor for which adjusted advice may be necessary. Migrants visiting their relatives in their origin country accounted for 14% of travellers and 73% of this group travelled with their family including young children. We demonstrate that a significant proportion of travellers are at-risk (43%) because of their travel conditions (VFR), their age, or their health status, and should be targeted for risk reduction strategies. ª

Keywords: Travellers; Demographics; Chronic conditions; Vaccination; Antimalarials

Domains: Mathematics [math]; Dynamical Systems [math.DS]; Mathematics [math]; Probability [math.PR]; Statistics [stat]; Methodology [stat.ME]; Mathematics [math]; Statistics [math.ST]; Environmental Sciences; Environmental and Society; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Ecology, environment; Health; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Human health and pathology; Infectious diseases; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Human health and pathology; Emerging diseases; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Microbiology and Parasitology; Parasitology; Life Sciences [q-bio]; Santé publique et épidémiologie; Statistics [stat]; Applications [stat.AP]

Camille Aubry, Jean Gaudart, Catherine Gaillard, Jean Delmont, Philippe Parola, et al.. Demographics, health and travel characteristics of international travellers at a pre-travel clinic in Marseille, France. Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, 2012, ⟨10.1016/j.tmaid.2012.09.004⟩. ⟨hal-01307761⟩