Survey Finds Most Air Travelers Willing to Release Contact Information To Aid Public Health Officials

July 21, 2004

Survey Finds Most Air Travelers Willing to Release Contact Information To Aid Public Health Officials
July 21, 2004 – A new study by the Harvard School of Public Health, Project on the Public and Biological Security, finds that 94 percent of air travelers would want public health authorities to contact them if they might have been exposed to a serious contagious disease on an airplane. The large majority of Americans who fly domestically or internationally report that they are willing to provide information that would aid public health officials contact them if such an event were to occur.

International travelers are currently required to provide emergency contact information. The Harvard study indicates that the large majority of these passengers are willing to continue doing so, with nearly nine in ten Americans who travel internationally (89 percent) reporting that they would be willing to give the airlines the name and telephone number of someone who could be contacted in case of an emergency. Similarly, about nine in ten (88 percent) of those international air travelers who take a cell phone, pager, or hand-held wireless e-mail when they fly say that they are willing to provide the phone or pager number or e-mail address for these devices. Also according to the study, nearly three-fourths (73 percent) are willing to provide the addresses and telephone numbers of the places they are going. Overall, 89 percent of international travelers are willing to provide one or more type of contact information, seven percent are unwilling to provide any, and four percent don’t know.

Unlike international travelers, domestic air travelers are not currently required to provide emergency contact information, but most report that they are willing to do so. Overall, 93 percent are willing to provide one or more type of contact information, five percent are unwilling to provide any, and two percent don’t know.

"The combination of possible threats of bioterrorism carried out on airplanes and newly emerging infectious diseases has left most Americans willing to cooperate with public health authorities who need emergency contact information to head off the spread of dangerous diseases," said Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health and director of the project.

While most of the air travelers participating in this study report that they are willing to release their contact information, they also indicate that most are not willing to wait very long to provide such information.

More than three in five domestic (61 percent) and international fliers (66 percent) said they would either not be willing to give emergency information at all or would no longer be willing to do so if it added ten minutes to the time it took to make a reservation or to check in. Nearly two-thirds of fliers said they were concerned that the privacy of their emergency information would not be protected.

"These findings suggest support for airlines and public health officials to work together to find some simple system where this information can be entered and retrieved easily while maintaining passengers’ privacy," said Blendon.

For the complete release and survey, visit http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/press/releases/press07192004.html.