Chikungunya Disease Awareness Among U.S. Travelers to Caribbean Destinations

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.