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Get to Know the Travel Health Division @ PHAC

Michèle SabourinManager, Knowledge Translation and Capacity Building

Travel Health DivisionInfectious Disease Prevention and Control Branch

Public Health Agency of Canada

Public Health Agency of Canada | Agence de la santé publique du Canada 2

Overview

• Travel Health Division at PHAC

• Travel Health section of PHAC’s website

Snapshot of Travel Health at PHAC

• Small but mighty

• Focus on four key areas– Risk assessment and epidemiology

– Professional guidelines and capacity building

– Knowledge transfer

– Yellow fever vaccination designation


Travel Health Division

– Risk Assessment, Surveillance and Epidemiology

– Program Management and Strategic Planning

– Knowledge Translation and Capacity Building


Risk Assessment, Surveillance and Epidemiology

• Epidemiological support the Committee to Advise on Tropical Medicine and Travel (CATMAT)

• Member of the WHO Yellow Fever Risk Mapping Working Group

Risk Assessment, Surveillance and Epidemiology

• Data Collection and Analysis– Airport surveys: knowledge, health

practices and attitudes towards prevention of travel-related illness among Canadians travelling to a developing country

– Geosentinel: support CanTravNet, a combination of data from 5 Canadian GeoSentinel Sites including a customized Canadian Healthmap that displays patient events entered only by Canadian sites

– Notifiable disease data on malaria, typhoid and cholera

– Statistics Canada data on travellers

• Travel Health Notices


Travel Health Notices

• Actively seek to identify and evaluate information about new, unusual or rapidly evolving health risks

• Risk framework to determine whether to post and at what level

• Travel Health Notices outlining the potential risks to Canadian travellers, and recommends measures to reduce these risks

• Posted with date and reviewed at minimum monthly to determine if editing or removal is required

Levels of Risk for Travel Health Notices

Level 1 Practice Usual Travel Health Precautions

Level 2 Practise Special Health Precautions

Level 3 Avoid Non-Essential Travel

Level 4 Avoid all Travel


Strategic Planning and Program Management and Yellow Fever Designation

• Project management support to all sections in the Division– Secretariat support to CATMAT and ad hoc

committees

– Strategic planning and coordination with internal stakeholders

• Yellow Fever Vaccination – PHAC responsible to designate sites in Canada

which can administer the yellow fever vaccine


Knowledge Translation and Capacity Building• Travel Health Division has a

KT plan which identifies our stakeholders and how we reach them

• Undertaking a number of targeted initiatives to reach travellers and health care providers and to increase visibility of website, including CATMAT products– Conference presentations– Travel industry events

• Posters and leaflets (with QR codes) available through 1 800 OCanada

Knowledge Translation and Capacity Building

• Web buttons & Widgets

• Well on Your Way brochure, joint PHAC and DFAIT publication, is available for free at: http://www.voya ge.gc.ca/publicat ions/menu- eng.asp

http://www.voyage.gc.ca/publications/menu-eng.asp






• Developing partnerships– Key travel interest holders

• Travel Health Insurance Association of Canada

• Association of Canadian Travel Agents

• Canadian Institute of Travel Counsellors

• Aeroplan & Expedia

– Service providers• iMD Health

– Government• Department of Foreign Affairs and

International Trade

• US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention

• Provide opportunities for capacity building for health care professionals in travel health– Capacity Building Working Group

– CME e-learning module on yellow fever

• Considerable work undertaken, and going, to improve our website www.travelhealth.gc.ca


http://www.travelhealth.gc.ca/


Travel Health Division Website

• Primary mode of information exchange with the public is our website www.travelhealth.gc.ca

• Undertook evaluation of Travel Health website– Visitor Pattern Analysis (VPA) of the PHAC

Travel Health website

– VPA of travel health broadly online

– Focus groups on architecture and content

• Results strongly suggested…– Wording was too technical

– Website was not serving public who preferred country recommendations

http://www.travelhealth.gc.ca/


PHAC Travel Health Website (www.travelhealth.gc.ca)

As a result, PHAC did a website overhaul• Content rewritten: shorter and non technical

• Health and travel positive ‘look and feel’

• Ten country pages piloted:– China, Cuba, Dominican Republic, France, India,

Kenya, Mexico, Poland, Thailand and the United Kingdom

• Additional 15 countries soon available:– Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Greece, Iran, Italy,

Jamaica, Japan, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Vietnam

• Expansion to all countries in 2012-2013


Travel Health Division Website

• Key aspects of the site which may be of interest: • Country specific recommendations• Travel health fact sheets• Travel Health Notices• Yellow fever vaccination information• CATMAT recommendation statements• For Professional… update coming soon


Country specific recommendations

On each Country page:

• Advise public to seek advice from health care provider

• Travel Health Notices in effect related to disease

• Vaccines – Routine– Vaccines to consider– Yellow fever requirements

• Other– Food and Water borne diseases– Insects and Illness – Malaria – Animals and Illness– Person-to-Person

• Keep in Mind: travel kit and link to DFAIT

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Travel Health Fact Sheets

• Collection of travel health fact sheets focussed on individual diseases

• New fact sheets recently added on:– Oral rehydration solutions– Medical tourism– Travel health kit– Travelling while pregnant

• Upcoming: additional fact sheets on– Targeted travel populations (ie. children,

adventure traveller, visiting friends and relatives)

– Key general travel health guidance

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CATMAT in the For Professionals Section:

• Clinical practice (CPG) and other guidelines related to travel and travellers for health professional – travel-related, vaccine-preventable

diseases: • specific to travel (e.g., typhoid, yellow fever,

Japanese encephalitis• considerations specific to the travel context (e.g.,

polio and meningitis).

– travel-related diseases for which vaccines are not currently available (e.g., malaria and dengue);

– groups of diseases (e.g., diarrhea, sexually-transmitted infections);

– specific populations of travellers (e.g., paediatric traveller, pregnant traveller);

– specific approaches to prevention (e.g., prevention of arthropod bites)


Yellow fever vaccination www.travelhealth.gc.ca

• Information for travellers and health care providers on: – Yellow fever and vaccination– Country entry requirements– Finding/becoming a designated site

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Working together to promote travel health

Key messages to keep in mind:

Before you go• Consult a health care provider preferably six weeks before you

travel• Surf before you fly: Check the PHAC website for up-to-date travel

health information (travelhealth.gc.ca )• Check Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada’s (DFAIT)

website for safety and security information (travel.gc.ca) • Obtain full travel health insurance coverage for both illness and

injury

While you travel• Protect yourself from food-borne and water-borne illnesses: Boil it,

cook it, peel it or leave it! • Protect yourself from insect bites: Cover up, and use insect

repellent on exposed skin• If you get sick while in another country call consular service for

assistance to locate a health care provider

When you return• If you have a fever when you return home, especially if you

travelled to an area with malaria, see a health care provider immediately

http://travelhealth.gc.ca/

http://www.travel.gc.ca/

How can we better support you and your clients?

Please contact: [email protected]

• To provide…– suggestions for how to improve our site– suggestions for travel health topics of interest to

you or your clients

• To receive updates on the latest travel health information, including Travel Health Notices

• To obtain information on how to link to our website

mailto:[email protected]


Discussion/Questions

Contact: Michèle Sabourin

Travel Health Division

[email protected]