Student travel health statistics show a large and varied population traveling for study, holidays, and visits to friends and relatives. The available figures describe U.S. study-abroad participation, illnesses recorded among students seeking care, and an Australian university survey of international travel behavior. Together, they show how travel volume, destination, preparation, and health knowledge shape risk.
Contents
- Study-abroad participation
- Who traveled and where
- Pre-travel health advice
- Vaccination knowledge and coverage
- Diagnoses after study abroad
- Malaria, dengue, and vaccine-preventable disease
Study-abroad participation
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 350,000 U.S. students studied abroad annually, according to the CDC Yellow Book. The scale changed sharply during the pandemic. U.S. study abroad declined by 53% in the 2019–2020 academic year and by 91% in the 2020–2021 academic year. Those are academic-year changes, so they describe participation in those specific periods rather than a permanent change in demand.
The CDC GeoSentinel study provides a separate pre-pandemic snapshot. More than 325,000 U.S. students studied abroad in 2015–16, representing 1.6% of all U.S. students enrolled in higher education institutions. The number increased by 3.8% from 2014–15 to 2015–16 and had more than tripled over the prior 20 years. About 23% of U.S. study-abroad students in 2015–16 studied in resource-limited countries.
These participation figures help put clinical statistics in context. A study of students who later appeared in a health-care surveillance cohort is not a count of every student who traveled, and a diagnosis percentage is not the same as the probability that every traveler will develop that condition. The CDC GeoSentinel study included 432 students who presented for care or evaluation.
Who traveled and where
The CDC GeoSentinel cohort had a median age of 21 years, and 69% of the cohort was female. The median duration of travel abroad was 40 days. After returning, the median time from return to presentation was 8 days. Ninety-eight percent of students were outpatients, indicating that nearly all of the recorded encounters did not involve inpatient hospitalization.
The most common exposure region was sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 26% of exposures. India accounted for 11%, Ecuador for 7%, Ghana for 6%, and China for 6%. These percentages describe the exposure distribution in the GeoSentinel cohort; they are not a ranking of the health risk of all destinations for all students.
The Australian university survey offers a broader view of travel behavior. Its analysis sample included 1,663 students, and 49.8% traveled internationally in the previous 12 months. Among students who traveled, 69.4% reported one trip during that period. North or Southeast Asia accounted for 73.7% of trips, while 26% of travelers went only to low-risk destinations such as the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and Europe.
| Travel measure | Percentage or count | Study population and period |
|---|---|---|
| Students traveling internationally | 49.8% | Australian university survey; previous 12 months |
| Travelers reporting one trip | 69.4% | Australian university survey; previous 12 months |
| Trips to North or Southeast Asia | 73.7% | Australian university survey |
| Travelers visiting only listed low-risk destinations | 26% | Australian university survey |
| Most recent trip for a holiday | 52.6% | Australian university survey |
Holiday travel was the most common reason for the most recent international trip in the Australian survey, at 52.6%. Travel motives differed by student background: 52.2% of international students traveled to visit friends and relatives, compared with 30.3% of domestic students. Also, 63.2% of international students had returned to their home country since starting their current university course.
Pre-travel health advice
Preparation was uneven across the student travel findings. More than 70% of students in the CDC GeoSentinel cohort had a pre-travel consultation with a health-care provider. In an earlier U.S. study-abroad survey cited by the CDC GeoSentinel study, 60% received a pre-travel health consultation, while 25% reported travel-related health problems. That earlier survey is a legacy finding cited by the study; it should be read as reported historical evidence, not as an independently verified current estimate.
The Australian university survey found a lower level of professional preparation. Only 32.4% of traveling students sought pre-travel health advice from a health professional. Domestic students were more likely to seek advice than international students: 38.2% versus 12.4%.
Among students who saw a health professional before travel, 90.7% saw a general practitioner. A further 20.9% sought health information from other sources. Among domestic students who sought professional advice, 31.7% were also likely to seek other sources, compared with 16.1% among those who did not seek professional advice.
The same Australian survey also reported that, across all students, 68% had not sought advice from a health professional before their last international trip. This measure refers to the last trip, whereas the 32.4% figure refers to traveling students and pre-travel advice; the different denominators and question wording matter when comparing them.
Vaccination knowledge and coverage
The Australian survey recorded whether students had ever received selected vaccines. Hepatitis B vaccination was reported by 36.4% of students, influenza vaccination by 25.2%, hepatitis A vaccination by 30.6%, and measles vaccination by 20.9%.
Across the four vaccines, 51.8% of students reported “no” or “don’t know.” This result combines students who said they had not received a vaccine with students who were uncertain, so it should not be interpreted as a confirmed rate of non-vaccination.
Knowledge was also incomplete. Nineteen point eight percent incorrectly indicated that a vaccine exists for the common cold. By comparison, 80.6% were aware that an influenza vaccine exists. The two measures concern different questions: one records an incorrect belief about a vaccine for the common cold, while the other records awareness of influenza vaccination.
These results describe survey responses, not clinical assessments of individual immunization status. “Ever receiving” a vaccine does not establish when it was administered, whether a multi-dose series was completed, or whether a traveler had the vaccination recommended for a particular destination. The findings therefore point to uncertainty and knowledge gaps without supplying a destination-specific vaccination schedule.
Diagnoses after study abroad
The CDC GeoSentinel student illness study recorded 581 confirmed diagnoses among its 432 students. A student could have more than one confirmed diagnosis, so the number of diagnoses is higher than the number of students. Gastrointestinal diagnoses made up 45% of confirmed diagnoses, and acute diarrhea accounted for 43% of gastrointestinal diagnoses.
Thirty-one students, or 7% of the cohort, had a vector-borne disease. The study also broke out the composition of systemic febrile illnesses: 17% were malaria and 13% were dengue. These percentages describe categories within the study’s reported diagnosis groupings and should not be added together as a total share of all students.
The timing of care is relevant to how these cases appeared in the data. The median duration of travel abroad was 40 days, and the median time from return to presentation was 8 days. Since 98% of the cohort were outpatients, the surveillance picture is dominated by students evaluated outside a hospital admission setting.
The earlier U.S. study-abroad survey cited by the CDC GeoSentinel study reported that 25% of students had travel-related health problems. That historical percentage comes from a different study design and population than the 432-student GeoSentinel cohort, so the two figures should not be treated as directly interchangeable prevalence estimates.
Malaria, dengue, and vaccine-preventable disease
The CDC GeoSentinel findings provide several preparation-related details for malaria and dengue. Ninety-three percent of students with malaria had a pre-travel visit. Among students with malaria who had a pre-travel consultation, 56% did not take malaria prophylaxis. The figures show that a consultation and use of prophylaxis were not equivalent behaviors in this cohort.
For dengue, 89% of students with dengue and available information had a pre-travel consultation. “Available information” limits the denominator to cases with that information recorded. The result should therefore not be generalized to every student with dengue or every student traveling to a dengue-affected destination.
Three students were diagnosed with a vaccine-preventable disease. Two of those cases were typhoid fever, and one was hepatitis A. These counts are small and come from the GeoSentinel student illness cohort; they are not population-wide rates for all students studying abroad.
The study also recorded five students with a sexually transmitted infection. Two students had acute febrile HIV infection, one had chlamydia, one had genital herpes, and one had syphilis. The Australian survey adds a behavior-related measure: only 19.2% of students reported carrying condoms on any trip in the past 12 months. That survey percentage and the GeoSentinel diagnosis counts come from different populations and should be considered separately.
Taken together, the student travel health statistics describe several distinct measurement layers: the number of students traveling, the destinations and reasons for travel, preparation before departure, reported vaccine knowledge, and diagnoses among students who came to medical attention. Keeping those layers separate is essential when using the figures to understand travel health rather than treating any one study as a universal rate for every student traveler.