Women's Health Abroad
The concept of women travelers is not new, however, the information age is.
All women are active users of today's technology, especially travelers.
Electronic mail, Internet websites and global communication are all becoming
important venues for women travelers to access information about places to
go, things to see and people to meet. There is a plethora of information
available to every kind of traveler. The specific information that I am
interested in are health precautions and concerns for the female traveler.
Upon searching the Internet for information that is both current and
accurate I was disappointed. I was only able to find bits and pieces of
relevant information and links after time consuming labour intensive
searches. Following is a compilation of information of three major topics,
immunizations, medical kits and health insurance. In addition, I will also
address the issue of, and provide suggestions for, the lack of easily
accessible health specific information for female travelers.
Immunization is probably the best precautionary action to take for
traveling abroad. An ideal process to approach the situation is to research
the planned area. Travel destinations in broad geographic groups like
continent and climate tend to have similar contagious diseases. However,
the best method to prepare for the onslaught of potential illness in any
area is to ensure relevant vaccinations are up to date, and to be aware of
the risk level of infection for contagious diseases in the travel
destination areas. There are many places where contagious disease is in
epidemic proportions and are fatal to the unprotected. There is one site in
particular, http://my.webmd.com/content/dmk/dmk_article_40084 ,with
an easy to read chart of contagious diseases, along with treatments and
locations of them, however, this site may not be updated as often as
http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/index.html and
http://www.cdc.gov/travel/ . These two sites offer information from
the World Health Organization and the United States Contagious Disease
Centre that is both very current and accurate. They are fairly easy to
navigate, and house a wealth of information on the particular contagious
diseases of nearly any given area. Along with this information and a visit
to a physician, immunization and vaccination concerns and worries should be
alleviated
Another important aspect of traveling is what to have on hand in a medical
kit. There are a number of sites that have long lists of recommended items
to pack incase of a medical emergency. All of the items listed are
beneficial, however, sometimes not every one of the recommended items are
needed. It is for this reason that research of the area of travel would be
the best preparation. Among the lists of recommended items, there is very
little mention of sanitary supplies. Many of the sites do not address the
problems of accessibility to sanitary supplies and also do not give
suggestions on how to pack them. There are a few sites for women solely
where sanitary supplies are mentioned, and kudos are given to various women
who have managed to pack them, but there is no explanation of exactly how
those women accomplished the feat. There are also a few sites specifically
for women who make recommendations about what kind of sanitary supplies are
easier to pack, but it seems to be a trial and error process. At a few of
the general traveler information sites, sanitary napkins are mentioned but
for different reasons: the great absorbency power for the absorption of
blood from deep cuts and lacerations! The other items listed that would not
necessarily be found in commercial first aid kits were forms of medication
for combating nausea, diarrhoea and other preventative measures like
anti-malarial tablets. Many of the other items listed as important like,
band-aids, scissors, tape, acetaminophen or ibuprofen, are standard in
comparison to any commercial first aid kit. The site which had the one of
the most useful lists of important items to bring was
http://www.journeywoman.com/journeydoctor/default.html , and one of
the few sites that touched on the topic of sanitary supplies abroad was
http://www.medicineplanet.com/women/women.phtml .
The third major topic addressed at many traveler sites with a health
component is health insurance. There are few things that tend to be
overlooked when planning trips and this is one of them. Due to the various
potential health risks in the many regions of the world it is highly
advisable that health insurance is obtained. It would be a very unpleasant
situation to be denied appropriate or sufficient medical treatment en route.
It is important to note the restrictions on various activities outlined in
the various plans offered by the insurance company. It is often reported
that travel health insurance is difficult to understand and nearly
impossible to decide which plan to purchase. Travel agents often know which
companies have the best prices, however, it is important to read the fine
print and make sure that the coverage will be suitable for all planned
adventures because not all plans cover moderate to extreme risk activities.
It is also important to decide on a plan that will pay the health care
system directly or not, requiring that money be paid up front with a
reimbursement claim upon arrival home. The monetary value of health care
can be quite expensive in some areas. Health insurance is an aspect of
travel that is best addressed weeks before the departure time. The two best
sites I found information on health insurance and links to health insurance
companies were www.journeywoman.com/journeydoctor/default.htm/
and www.lonelyplanet.com.au/health/.
Overall there were some sites that offered specific area health advice
like pbs.org/hitchikingvietnam/travel/index.html where the
female author of the site covers all the aspects of her journey especially
the problems and highlights. Some sites only offered minimal female health
advice but supplied other links and other types of advice
www.lonelyplanet.com.au/health/.
My main concern for this assignment was to find a wealth of information
about health concerns for women, and compile it into an easy to read
document with links to other similar and useful sites. However, the wealth
of information about health concerns specifically for women simply was not
there. I was hoping to combine primary health information like the above
about immunizations, medical kits and health insurance with supplemental
health information like sanitary supply accessibility, sexual assault coping
tactics and safety concerns and precautions. However, the information that
I found was just primary information that is applicable to any traveler
regardless of sex. There were few sites that offered information in terms
of secondary concerns. Many sites classified pregnancy as traveling with
special needs along with other chronic diseases and traveling with children.
Also many sites only mentioned condoms and other forms of contraception
under the 'Women's Health' section. I can only speculate the reasons why
this information was presented in this manner, and under these topics. It
seems to be the most beneficial method to present this information in an
easily accessible manner is all in one health specific site. It would make
sense to have a group of female health care professionals provide
information that pertains to specific female health issues and concerns for
traveling abroad. The best method of conveying knowledge valuable to female
travelers is to have easily accessible networks of information set up so
that personal stories and anecdotes about specific health issues can be
shared among interested female travelers.
It is possible that all of this information is available already through
non-mainstream venues. To me it seems impractical to not have valuable
health information accessible through mainstream venues when interest in
traveling our global village is skyrocketing. Hopefully as information
becomes more accessible the autonomy created by traveling will become more
attractive to women of all backgrounds, which in turn will increase the
availability of information causing a reciprocal and symbiotic relationship
beneficial to every traveler.
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