Americans traveling abroad are faced with larger health threats including road crashes, a new study finds.
Between 2003 and 2009, more Americans have died abroad from crashes that involved cars or motorcycles than from homicide and other terrorist events, the researchers involved in the study wrote in the journal Injury Prevention. "Money spent on public health interventions related to homicides has apparently been spent successfully," said Dr. David Bishai, lead author of the study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
"But there is a gap in funding now," he added. "What gets travelers abroad isn't so much infectious disease or homicide - it's road safety. The U.S. Department of State spends approximately $51.6 billion annually to protect its citizens both abroad and at home, but health risks during international travel can be very tricky. Bishai and his team measured deaths per one million visits to a country by American travelers. During the six-year study period, the U.S. Department of State data showed a total of $5.417 unnatural deaths among Americans while traveling abroad.
The top-five countries for international deaths were Colombia, with 13.7 international deaths per million American visits, the Dominican Republic with 11 deaths per million; Thailand and Morocco, each with 5.5 international deaths per million visits and the Philippines, with a rate of 21 per million visits. With the exception of the Philippines, more Americans died from road crashes in all of the 160 countries surveyed than from homicide.
Thailand has the most number of traffic fatalities with 16.5 deaths per million visits, followed by Vietnam with 15 fatal road accidents per million visits. "People will go to Vietnam and ride on a motorcycle because it's the way to get around," Bishai said.
