• Penny E Neave, Balakrishnan Nair, and Anita E Heywood.
• Department of Public Health, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.
• J Travel Med. 2017 May 1; 24 (3).

BackgroundTertiary students are at risk of acquiring infectious diseases during overseas travel as they visit low-income countries, have low perceptions of risk and are unlikely to access travel health advice. Some will visit friends and relatives abroad, a group identified as disproportionately affected by imported infections. There is no national student travel health policy in NZ. This study aimed to explore travel health training of university-based health providers; academics' practices and perceptions of travel health; reasons for travel and countries visited by NZ university students, their travel health uptake and factors affecting decision making about this.MethodsA cross-sectional study consisting of surveys sent in 2014 to university clinics, senior academics and students.ResultsSurveys were completed by 251 respondents. Three of nine clinicians had only undertaken a short course in travel health. Competing resources and time constraints in health clinics were amongst the barriers to providing optimal services. Of the senior academics, only 14% were able to confirm their university collaborated with health clinics. Sixty seven percent of students were unaware that clinics provided travel health services and 19% had or intended to seek professional travel health advice.ConclusionsA national policy is warranted involving all stakeholders, utilizing innovative technologies to increase uptake of student travel health services.© International Society of Travel Medicine, 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

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