STI campaign targets backpackers
NSW Health has launched a new awareness campaign to lower rates of sexually transmitted infection (STI) among backpackers. The campaign, revealed last week, is being rolled out in January 2013 and will target the more than 400,000 backpackers who visit Sydney each year by promoting condom usage and providing information on how international travellers can access sexual health services and clinics while in Sydney.
Posters advertising NSW Health’s Get Tested, Play Safe website, which aims to promote awareness of STIs and sexual health testing among young people, will be placed in bus stops and backpacker hostels throughout the CBD and Eastern Sydney.
Condom tins and booklets containing details of local sexual health clinics will also be distributed to local hotels and tourist information centres. The NSW government’s free Sexual Health InfoLine will also be heavily promoted.
The campaign comes in response to a 2010 study by the Sydney Sexual Health Centre that identified backpackers as a group in need of better access to sexual health services. The report found that backpackers visiting Sydney had more sexual partners and were twice as likely to drink to hazardous levels as the rest of the population. The study also found only 22 percent of backpackers regularly used condoms during sex, putting them at increased risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections.
While backpackers who contract serious STIs like herpes or HIV can access free emergency health care, foreign travellers who see GPs for standard sexual health checkups can be charged steep rates for a service Australians can access for free.
Liberal Member for Vaucluse Gabrielle Upton launched the campaign on behalf of Health Minister Jillian Skinner. She highlighted the importance of backpackers knowing where to get free sexual health checks.
“People who aren’t citizens of Australia or NSW still need to be able to obtain advice and assistance on sexual health issues,” Upton said. “My electorate has some of the biggest tourist destinations in Sydney, Bondi Beach for example, so this is an issue of interest for me.”
The campaign will run until March to coincide with the summer peak tourist season.
