ArticlesDifferences in sexual risk behaviour between young men and women travelling abroad from the UK
Introduction
Sexual risk behaviour among international travellers has become an important issue because of the HIV-1 epidemic.1 A common assumption is that people are more likely to engage in high-risk sexual behaviour when travelling than when they are at home. Of the several national European studies on sexual behaviour,2 the Swiss national survey is the only one that collected data separately on respondents' sexual partners while travelling abroad.3 There have also been studies on travellers' sexual risk behaviour based on local samples,4 clinic samples,5, 6, 7 and subgroups of travellers such as sex tourists8, 9 and returning expatriates.10
Many European countries have targeted intervention campaigns at international travellers to reduce high-risk sexual behaviour, but such efforts are hampered by the limited information available on those subgroups of travellers who are most likely to engage in such behaviour. Our feasibility study, supported by the European Commission, was designed to lay the groundwork for coordinated individual national studies and interventions in Member States, as projected in the Europe Against AIDS Programme. We collected reports of different risk behaviours to allow a detailed analysis of those subgroups of travellers who might be most appropriately targeted for health promotion. We restricted sampling to young people travelling abroad unaccompanied by a sexual partner, since earlier research4 indicated that such travellers were those most likely to report a new sexual partner.
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Respondents
The easiest way to collect many representative reports of sexual risk behaviour is to use a two-stage sampling strategy. The first stage involves screening a large number of people for eligibility in one heterogeneous survey that is designed to serve various research needs. Such so-called omnibus surveys are carried out on representative samples on a regular basis by market research organisations. Our initial screening work was done by National Opinion Polls plc (NOP) as part of its regular
Results
Refusal rates in the 11 first-stage omnibus surveys (which yielded 59% of the achieved sample) varied between 32% and 38%. A similar proportion of men and women refused to take part. A mean of 73% of interviewees agreed to be recontacted. Those who refused to be recontacted were more likely to be older than 65 years and in socioeconomic grades D and E. Refusal rates in the 17 first-stage Telebus surveys (which yielded 33% of the achieved sample) were between 71% and 82%. A mean of 85% of people
Discussion
Concern about the possible public-health implications of international travel has been stimulated by clinical reports of HIV-1 infection and other sexually transmitted diseases among travellers returning from abroad.16, 17, 18, 19 The proportion of travellers who reported using condoms in this study is therefore encouraging. When the UK National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL)12 collected data on condom use with a new sexual partner within the previous 4 weeks, the
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Sexual risk-taking during travel abroad - A cross-sectional survey among youth in Sweden
2016, Travel Medicine and Infectious DiseaseCitation Excerpt :Few studies of youth travellers have included a diagnosed STI as an outcome [13,15,19]. Factors that have been shown to be associated with sexual risk-taking behaviour among youth while abroad are male gender, single status or travelling alone, long-stay travel, pre-travel expectations of sex, excessive alcohol consumption, use of drugs and same-sex behaviour among men [6,7,9,10,13,14,16–18]. Of all chlamydia-infected in the age group 18–29 years in Sweden 2014, about 8% of women and 7% of men were infected abroad, according to statistics from the Public Health Agency of Sweden.
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2010, International Journal of Infectious DiseasesCitation Excerpt :Additionally, seven studies referred to people who had stayed in foreign countries for a prolonged period of time (e.g., volunteers, casual workers, and military personnel),12–18 two to male travelers who have sex with men,19,20 and one to HIV-positive people who traveled abroad.21 Of 25 remaining studies included in the qualitative analysis, nine were conducted in clinical settings,10,22–29 mainly genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics, 11 were surveys of travelers, generally returning from a journey overseas or in the departure lounge of the airport,3,30–36,38–40 another two studies prospectively recruited travelers seeking pre-travel advice from a clinical setting,41,42 and the remaining three were surveys of the general population or subsets of the population, such as a sample of university students.37,43,44 Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of the studies included in the review.