PLANNING AND PREPAREDNESS

WHILE WE ALL HOPE to avoid an emergency while traveling, many people do experience an incident — and sooner or later that person may be you. The better informed and prepared you are for such an occurrence, the less likely you will suffer severe or even dire consequences. Awareness of risks helps us to adopt risk-mitigating behaviors. Health risks for travelers vary depending on many factors, and no single statistic applies to all travelers. Figure 1 provides information from various sources to give you an idea of relative risk of adverse health outcomes in travelers.