Personal infection prevention behaviors and campaign to encourage travel during COVID-19: A cross-sectional study

IntroductionThe Go To Travel campaign in Japan was launched to subsidize travel and accommodation costs for tourists through vouchers that could be used at domestic destinations. Infection prevention behavior can lead to refraining from travel owing to infection concerns; conversely, taking preventive action can promote travel. There is a lack of information about the association between infection prevention behaviors and desire to travel. During a pandemic of infection, there is the difficult challenge of balancing the promotion of infection prevention behavior with economic revitalization. Thus, we examined the relationship between personal infection prevention behaviors and using Go To Travel. MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study of 26,637 workers who responded to a large-scale questionnaire survey about COVID-19 in Japan. We built multilevel logistic regression models adjusted for confounders to assess the association between each personal infection prevention behavior and using Go To Travel. We analyzed the seven infection prevention behavior individually: wearing a mask when among other people; disinfecting hands with alcohol before going indoors; washing hands after using the toilet; gargling upon returning home; opening a window to ventilate a room; carrying an alcohol sanitizer; and disinfecting hands after touching objects outside. ResultsAmong the 26,637 participants, 7,959 (30%) used Go To Travel. For wearing a mask in the presence of others and washing hands after using the toilet, the majority of respondents answered almost always: 86.5 and 85.6% respectively. Action carrying alcohol disinfectant was the least implemented, with 36.9% of respondents saying almost never. Two of the seven preventive behaviors (disinfecting hands with alcohol before going indoors and carrying alcohol disinfectant) were positively related to using Go To Travel, that is, the more of these actions they took, the more they used Go To Travel (p for trend <0.001). ConclusionsTo balance pandemic preparedness with economic preparedness, it is also necessary to promote travel when the infection situation is calm. However, since human mobility can be a factor that exacerbates the infection situation, it is necessary to promote more infection prevention behaviors among individuals. We confirmed that Go To Travel users were basically doing a good infection prevention behaviors, but they tended not to wash their hands after touching things or carry alcohol sanitizer. It is necessary to encourage these measures to be taken when traveling.

Automated summary

This study investigates the association between the Go To Travel campaign and personal infection prevention behaviors in Japan. It found that most participants who used Go To Travel were practicing basic preventive measures such as wearing masks and washing hands, but they tended to neglect hand hygiene after touching objects and carrying alcohol disinfectant. Therefore, it is necessary to encourage these measures during travel.