Journal of travel medicine
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Medical tourism has been increasing dramatically globally, with people travelling from developed countries to low-income or middle-income countries, often to avoid high costs or long delays associated with seeking healthcare in their countries of origin. The current review summarizes healthcare-related infections associated with medical tourism, focusing on cosmetic surgery and organ transplantation. ⋯ There is a need for public health strategies in order to prevent morbidity and mortality as well as future management and education of patients engaging in medical tourism.
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Older persons may suffer more from travel-related health problems because of ageing and underlying chronic disorders. Knowledge on who is more likely to have these health problems helps to tailor travel health advice more specifically. This study aimed to determine predictors of travel-related morbidity in older travellers by assessing their pre-travel characteristics and performance using physical and cognitive functioning tests. ⋯ Older Dutch travellers are generally fit, well-prepared and suffer not only from common infectious health problems, but also from injuries. Travel improved their self-perceived health. The predictors could be used to identify the more at-risk older traveller and to decrease travel-related morbidity by optimizing pre-travel advice.
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Inflammatory bowel disease poses substantial challenges to travel. We aimed to investigate inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD)-associated challenges to travel, information-seeking behaviour and associated factors. ⋯ We report a detailed investigation on the IBD-associated barriers while travelling abroad, common information-seeking behaviours and factors associated with worse outcomes. Importantly, patients from all the surveyed countries provided similar travel barrier and preparation habits, highlighting the consistent nature of the challenge.