title: Preventing dengue and chikungunya fever among international travelers.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe the vulnerability of U.S. travelers in tropical and subtropical regions of the world to dengue and chikungunya fever, to provide practical recommendations to avoid these mosquito-borne diseases, and to offer a communication tool as an aid for pretravel health consultations.
  
  
  METHODS
  Medical, epidemiological, and entomological research articles and reviews, and reports from government agencies.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Dengue and chikungunya fever have growing public health impact around the world. International travelers return to the United States infected with these diseases. Mosquito bite avoidance is the only way to prevent dengue and chikungunya fever. Informed travelers have many options for simple and practical measures to lessen the risk of mosquito bites. A message map can be used as a communication tool for pretravel counseling on the prevention of dengue and chikungunya fever within the time frame of an office visit.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In a pretravel health consultation, a nurse practitioner can promote travelers' health and prevent dengue, chikungunya fever, and other mosquito-borne diseases by counseling on the risk of these diseases and giving practical recommendations for prevention using a message map.
authors.affiliation: Frontier Nursing University, Hyden, Kentucky.
authors.forename: Pauline Herold
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Tither
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001179:Arthropod Vectors; D065632:Chikungunya Fever / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009033:Culicidae; D003715:Dengue / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D014195:Travel / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014330:Tropical Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: Traveler; chikungunya fever; dengue fever; message map; travel medicine; tropical medicine