TY - JOUR ID - 43363 TI - Chikungunya Disease Awareness Among U.S. Travelers to Caribbean Destinations JO - International Journal of Travel Medicine and Global Health JA - IJTMGH LA - en SN - 2322-1100 AU - Omodior, Oghenekaro AU - Pennington-Gray, Lori AU - Holland, Stephen AU - Thapa, Brijesh AU - Kiousis, Spiro AD - Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Studies, School of Public Health, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, USA AD - Department of Tourism, Recreation & Sport Management, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA AD - College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA Y1 - 2017 PY - 2017 VL - 5 IS - 1 SP - 20 EP - 27 KW - Chikungunya awareness KW - U.S. travelers KW - Caribbean destination KW - Personal-protective behavior DO - 10.15171/ijtmgh.2017.04 N2 - Introduction: This study investigated chikungunya disease awareness and its predictors, the level of adoption of recommended personal protective behaviors against chikungunya, and the health information-seeking behavior of U.S. travelers to Caribbean destinations.Methods: A cross-sectional retrospective online survey of 653 adult U.S. international travelers who visited any one of 34 Caribbean destinations was conducted in October 2015. Study participants were recruited through Amazon® Mechanical Turk. Travelers who met the inclusion criteria and gave informed consent were subsequently redirected to complete the survey which was domiciled in Qualtrics®.Results: Results regarding health information-seeking behavior indicated that 51% of study participants had never sought information about chikungunya or any vector-borne illnesses. Only thirty percent of study participants reported having heard of chikungunya disease before participating in this study. After adjusting for the presence of other variables in a logistic regression model, gender of female, higher levels of education, more time spent at the destination, and a higher number of hours spent engaging in outdoor activities were factors significantly associated with chikungunya disease awareness. Study results also showed that twenty-two percent of study participants did not engage in any of the three recommended personal protective behaviors under investigation.Conclusion: Study findings highlighted a gap in existing approaches to health information dissemination vis-à-vis adoption of recommended personal protective behaviors, especially for U.S. travelers at risk for chikungunya and other emerging mosquito-borne infectious diseases in Caribbean destinations. UR - https://www.ijtmgh.com/article_43363.html L1 - https://www.ijtmgh.com/article_43363_0ff4b0d75f7669a2a91829caead438fd.pdf ER -