A Survey of International Inbound Passengers on Their Knowledge of the Health Statement

C. L. Lai ； C. C. Wu

《Epidemiology Bulletin》 17卷5期 (2001/05) Pp. 113-122

https://doi.org/10.6525/TEB.200105_17(5).0001

並列摘要

The present survey used the cross-sectional method to study the extent of knowledge of international inbound passengers concerning the Health Statement. In February 2000 at the Hsiaokang International Airport in Kaohsiung, inbound domestic passengers arriving from Hong Kong ,Macao ,the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan were randomly selected for study. A structured questionnaire was used to personally interview 611 of these passengers. The results were processed and analyzed with SPSS for Windows 8.05 soft. Of those interviewed, 300 (49.1%) were males; and 284 (46.0%) were females. 48% (293/611)of them had their travel arrangements made by travel agents; and 41.1% (256/611) did not. 46.0% (281/611) knew that there was a quarantine office at the airport, though only 0.3% (2/611)knew that it was named the Center for Disease Control of the Department of Health. 53% (324/611) had symptoms of diarrhea. No statistically significant difference by sex (p＞0.05) was noted in passengers’ ability to correctly answer the Health Statement. Of those passengers who had their travel arrangements made by travel agents, 49.5% (139/281) knew how to correctly fill in the Health Statement ;whereas 60.1%(149/248) of passengers who did not have their travel arranged for them knew how to do so. 74.5% (204/274) of passengers who knew there was a quarantine office at the airport knew how to fill in the Health Statement. This was higher than the 37.3% (120/322) of passengers who did not know of the existence of a quarantine office at the airport though they did kn0ow how to fill in the Health Statement. Both differences were statistically significant (p＜0.05).
The Health Statement use at international ports of entry by the Center for Disease Control, the Department of Health , is a rapid method of collecting information on imported communicable diseases. Survey findings showed that travel agents played a significant role in passengers’ knowledge about the Health Statement:(the Health Statement was in most cases filled in by travel agents for passengers). Thus the cooperation of travel agents and tour leaders is extremely important to the health education of passengers and the screening of imported communicable diseases.