Travel for Work

Council Members

• Chair: Jenny Sisson, Australia
• Past Chair: Michael Holzer, United States of America
• Ian Cheng, Australia
• Doug Randell, Australia
• Androula Pavli, Greece

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COVID-19 and Travel for Work - Advice for Travel Health Practitioners

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Do you counsel patients who travel for work?

• Network with your colleagues
• Help establish Best Practice guidelines and recommendations to assist employers and organisations in keeping employees and members safe, healthy, and productive while travelling abroad and upon their return.

ISTM Executive Board has approved the Travel for Work Interest Group. This group is free to join with your ISTM membership and will give you the opportunity to collaborate with other ISTM members who council all types of patients that travel for work including sports organisations, the entertainment industry, NGOs, military contractors, religious organisations, independent contractors and volunteers.

The Travel for Work Interest Group aims to establish best practice guidelines and recommendations to assist employers and organizations to keep employees and members safe, healthy, and productive while travelling abroad and upon their return. The goal of this group is not to establish occupational health specific guidelines, requirements or standards, as these already exist within a country or industry.

The goal of this group is to, through inter-collegial consultation within the ISTM forum, provide international best practice guidelines for sending employees abroad, focusing on destination specific disease risk mitigation, safety issues and access to adequate medical care. The type of travellers targeted in this group include, but is not limited to corporate/executive, (frequent) travellers on multiple short trips (< 7 days) staying in 5 star hotels, workers sent on labour-intensive projects (< 1month) and expatriates/long term assignments (months to years). This group will address a) pre-travel assessment, including screening/fit for travel examinations, vaccine and malaria recommendations, and general travel health counselling b) Injury and illness abroad, including access to medical care issues and insurance c) post-travel evaluation, d) corporate social responsibility issues as they relate to medical matters (E.g. malaria control measure for expats vs local employees - and their families).

Goals for the Group

• Establish recommendations for "fit for travel"/screening examinations for international occupational travel including accompanying employee dependants, taking home, host country and international legislation and guidelines into consideration.
• Provide vaccine and malaria prevention guidelines in the work setting
• Discuss general counselling topics
• Create best practice guidelines for international health insurance
• Create best practice guidelines for access to medical care abroad
• Address psychological health of long-term travellers and post-travel evaluation
• To help members learn the laws and regulations of countries around the world

Groups to encompass

• Employers
• Sports organizations
• Entertainment industry (film/music)
• NGOs
• Military Contractors
• Religious/Humanitarian Organizations
• Independent Contractors
• Volunteers