July & August

Travel health nursing is concerned not only with the health of travelers, but also their safety. Road crashes are the single greatest annual cause of death of healthy U.S. citizens traveling abroad. Summer is the season for some of the highest vehicle accidents rates. Be sure to review road safety measures for drivers and pedestrians during the pretravel encounter. Provide your travelers with education to reduce their morbidity and mortality risk for MVAs, motor vehicle accidents. Learn more by reading our June Educational Resource.

THE MISSION

The American Travel Health Nurses Association (ATHNA) is the professional organization for travel health nursing in North America. We are recognized as an official ANA nursing specialty that is dynamic and evolving. With nearly 3000 members across the United States and internationally, ATHNA is committed to professional development, networking, research, and advocacy in travel health nursing.

THE SPECIALTY

As travel health nurses we specialize in advancing the well-being of all travelers in all settings who travel both domestically and internationally. We provide care for individuals, families, and groups through all stages of travel including pre-travel preparation, in transit support, and post travel evaluation and management. Travel health nurses practice in a variety of settings that include private travel health clinics, universities, corporations, the military, public health and community clinics. As clinicians, travel health nursing professionals are specially educated and trained to assess traveler health and safety risks and to manage risk reduction strategies that include immunizations, medications, health counseling, and referrals. Travel health nurses also function as researchers, faculty members, consultants to business and governments, entrepreneurs, and nursing leaders in this country and internationally.

Travel health nursing is not to be mistaken for the "travel nurse" who provides temporary traditional nursing care throughout the US where staffing needs are high and supplemental staffing is needed during times of peak capacity.

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Education Resource

ATHNA editors are on vacation, and we hope you are too. Perhaps you now have some "down time" as you sit on a beach or read by a lake. If so, we hope you will give this newest ATHNA feature a second look. We suspect many of you may have been too busy earlier in 2022 as Covid continued, but international travel started to resume. (Some are calling it "revenge tourism.") For July and August, we are recapping some of the content you may have missed. Be sure to check out:

• January: An Update on SIRVA. Know what this is? How to prevent it? As we inoculate against monkeypox and await another Covid booster, knowing how to prevent this injection injury is important for you and your patient.
• February: Are you prescribing more Tafenoquine? Then you need to know everything about G6PD deficiency. We covered that topic during the dead of winter (hard to imagine we would love a dose of that cold air right now).
• March: Counseling travelers to prevent pregnancy? When first posted four months ago, this contraception content, provided by Director Julie Richards, was important. In light of SCOTUS and the Dobbs decision, this topic is even more critical as we counsel our travelers to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
• April: Are you up to date on ACIP guidance for Hepatitis B, Shingles, and the Pneumococcal vaccines? Guidelines are always changing, it seems. Read the latest guidance and also learn about two terrific vaccine resources recently revised.
• May: Travel health terminology is always growing. Can you define NTDs? What about familymoon? Gramping? Screen tourism? And because this is the "sun season," take a moment, to quickly learn the 5 W's and one H of sun protection. Help your travelers prevent sunburn and skin cancer as they head off to the shore or islands in July and August.
• June: During Pride Month we featured content on the LGBTQ+ traveler, but this population travels year- round. Learn some tips for promoting a safe and healthy journey. And since monkeypox is now a designated WHO global emergency, add these resources to the excellent ones already listed in the June content- Washington Post Monkeypox article and the WHO monkeypox factsheet.

For quick access to Educational Resource, go to:

• Past Months' Archived Content

National Immunization Awareness Month Starts August 1

August is National Immunization Awareness Month (NIAM). This annual observance highlights the efforts to protect people of all ages against vaccine-preventable diseases through on-time vaccination. This year, NIAM serves as an important reminder to catch up on routine visits and vaccinations that may have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

During NIAM, encourage your patients to schedule appointments to ensure they are up to date on annual exams and recommended vaccines. Research shows that healthcare providers are the most trusted source of vaccine information for parents and patients.

CDC's NIAM web page includes two toolkits, one for reaching healthcare professionals and the other for reaching parents and patients. Each includes key messages, sample social media content, and educational resources. CDC encourages its partners to share these messages and resources throughout August using the hashtag #ivax2protect. Stay tuned for more resources to be released throughout the coming weeks.

Related Links

• CDC: Toolkit for Reaching Healthcare Professionals main page
• CDC: Toolkit for Reaching Parents and Patients main page

The long- awaited change in the rabies PrEP vaccination schedule is now official!

On May 5, CDC published the new recommendation in the MMWR. This was the final step necessary to make this shortened 2 dose schedule the US standard for pretravel immunization against rabies. We encourage nurses to read the publication in its entirety. In the fall, ATHNA plans to offer educational offerings to raise rabies awareness among all nursing professionals, understand how to administer rabies vaccine according to the latest ACIP guidelines, utilize a checklist to counsel behavioral prevention measures, and address FAQs about the updated vaccination guidelines. Remember: always educate your patients to avoid direct contact with mammals.

Use of a Modified Preexposure Prophylaxis Vaccination Schedule to Prevent Human Rabies: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices - United States, 2022

TravelByte #41: Traveling with Medications

August is the time of year when many students prepare for a semester or year studying abroad. During the pretravel encounter, questions often arise about medications- how much to bring? any issues crossing borders? storage during transit and at destination? etc. In this TravelByte we offer some general guidelines and two good resources for counseling students- and all international travelers- about traveling with medications.

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ATHNA Speaks Out Against Gun Violence

As a member of the global public health community, ATHNA supports the May 25 statement of the American Nurses Association (ANA) regarding the need for collective action to stem the rise in gun violence in our country. We also support and refer readers to the American Public Health Association (APHA) web site addressing this leading and tragic cause for premature death across America https://www.apha.org/topics-and-issues/gun-violence

Travel health nurses are committed to the health and safety of all travelers domestic and international. ATHNA encourages its members to support local, national, and international efforts to eliminate gun violence.

ANA Announcement: https://www.nursingworld.org/news/news-releases/2022-news-releases/uvalde-school-shooting-response/

SILVER SPRING, MD - Yesterday in Uvalde, Texas, at least 19 children and two teachers lost their lives when a gunman entered an elementary school and opened fire. Two weeks ago, grandparents and family members were gunned down while grocery shopping in Buffalo, New York. These are only two of the latest instances of innocent lives lost to senseless gun violence in such a short span of time.

"Our hearts ache tremendously for the loved ones and the communities left behind in the wake of these heinous acts of violence," said American Nurses Association President Ernest J. Grant, PhD, RN, FAAN. "The loss of young lives and the trauma of those who witnessed the carnage and survived will remain with them forever. Their lives will never be the same. There simply are no words. Burying a child is the most unnatural and horrific act that no parent should ever have to experience in their lifetime."

Nurses witness the immediate carnage and devastation from mass shootings and gun violence.

"It's unimaginable and you never recover from it," said Grant. "We extend our hearts and full support to all of the first responders, nurses and health care professionals providing care to victims and loved ones at the hospitals and health systems in affected communities across the country."

For decades, the American Nurses Association (ANA) has advocated for common sense policies that will enhance the background check system to prevent potentially dangerous individuals from obtaining firearms and to improve access to mental health services. In addition to supporting the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019 and 2021 (H.R. 8), ANA has declared gun violence a public health issue and called for research that helps address the underlying issues that may lead to gun violence.

ANA stands in solidarity with the individuals, families and communities impacted and calls for meaningful action now to address this tragic, ever-growing epidemic of gun violence.

Previous ANA Statement: https://ana.aristotle.com/SitePages/gunviolence.aspx

"The time to unite and take action is now. Together we can halt the growing list of victims. We can stop the madness by forging solutions that address the myriad issues that promote cycles of violence. We must raise our voices to join with members of our communities and at every level of civil society in dialogue and action, to address the underlying issues that result in hate and motivate unspeakable acts of violence."

-Former ANA President Pamela Cipriano, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

As the largest single group of health care professionals, nurses are increasingly caring for those victimized by gun violence and those forced to confront the physical and emotional consequences of these senseless acts. For decades, ANA has called on Congress to enact sensible legislation aimed at reducing gun violence. In the wake of multiple mass shootings that have taken place across the country, ANA, representing the voices of more than 4.2 million registered nurses nationwide, renewed its call to action by urging lawmakers to immediately repeal restrictions prohibiting the CDC from studying gun violence.

May 30, 2022

Travel Health Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice

Do you prepare individuals and families for international travel?

As international travel returns, nurses will need to be prepared to offer travel health services according to best practices and the latest legal guidelines. An essential resource for delivering comprehensive and quality care is Travel Health Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice, 2021, a joint publication of the American Travel Health Nurses Association (www.athna.org) and the American Nurses Association.

• Did you know? Fewer than twenty percent of travelers seek pretravel services at travel health clinics; most travelers seek immunizations, medications, and counseling guidance from their primary care provider.
• Travel Health Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice is written not only for nurses in this new specialty, but also for any nursing clinician with patients who travel
• This text is the legal foundation for the nursing care of US travelers
• If you provide any travel health services: pre-travel assessment, immunizations, or health counseling (e.g., malaria, zika, traveler's diarrhea, jet lag, altitude illness) you will find this text essential
• Post travel care is mentioned as well- Recommendations for post-travel triage and evaluation are included
• To access the Table of Contents, go to: www.nursingworld.org/~4951d0/globalassets/catalog/book-toc/2021_travel-health-nursing_toc.pdf

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