In this commentary, we establish a relationship between medical sociology and the study of medical tourism and cross-border healthcare by introducing Ronald Andersen's behavioral model of healthcare use, and linking this model to the recent empirical study of Kovacs et al. on patients travelling to Hungary for orthopedic treatment. Finally, we plead for more measurement in the field of patient ...

Medical tourism in Ireland, like in many Western states, is built around assumptions about individual agency, choice, possibility, and mobility. One specific form of medical tourism—the flow of women from Ireland traveling in order to secure an abortion—disrupts and contradicts these assumptions. One legacy of the bitter, contentious political and legal battles surrounding abortion in Ireland i...

The tourism footprint family comprises the tourism ecological footprint (TEF), the tourism carbon footprint (TCF) and the tourism water footprint (TWF). The tourism footprint represents an important tool for quantitatively assessing the impact of tourism activities on the ecosystem of a tourist destination. This paper systematically reviews the relevant literature on TEF, TCF and TWF, analyses ...

Irresponsible travel has the potential to harm both the traveler and the host destination. The subject of responsible travel is a major focus of the International Society of Travel Medicine, whose Responsible Travel special interest group has been very active in providing leadership for travel medicine practitioners in relation to the protection of local travel destination communities. Healthca...

An analysis of health system reforms in recent decades shows an apparent pendulum phenomenon. In times of macroeconomic adjustments, the pendulum swings to contain expenditures, suppress rights, and open the market, under the argument that competition improves quality. In this context, primary health care (PHC) is seen as a selective policy for excluded populations. Meanwhile, in favorable poli...

Introduction: In the globalizing world; the concept of medical tourism comes to the fore with the increase in travel freedoms between countries, easier transportation facilities, and the increased quality of healthcare services in different countries. This study aims to examine the barriers to developing medical tourism and prioritize the factors to give an insight on where to ...

Following the identification of medical tourism as a growth sector by the Malaysian government in 1998, significant government sector and private-sector investments have been channeled into its development over the past 15 years. This is unfolding within the broader context of social services being devolved to for-profit enterprises and 'market-capable' segments of society becoming sites of int...

Introduction The tourism industry is highly vulnerable to Health, Safety, and Environmental Sanitation (HSE) threats. The Caribbean is the most tourism dependent region in the world, with over 54.2 million stayover and cruise ship arrivals in 2015, generating revenues of $US29.6 billion and contributing to 15% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 2,255,000 jobs [1]. Tourists and staff are at...