Background The SARS outbreak served to test both local and international outbreak management and risk communication practices. Purpose The study compares SARS knowledge, perceptions, behaviors, and information between Finns and the Dutch during the SARS outbreak in 2003. Method The participants of the study, who used a modified SARS Psychosocial Research Consortium survey, were drawn from Internet panels in Finland (n=308) and the Netherlands (n =373) in June 2003. Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to calculate odds ratios (with 95% confidence intervals) to compare Finns with the Dutch for various levels of perceptions and behaviors. Results Adjusted for age, education, and income, Finns were more likely to be knowledgeable and worried about SARS as well as to have low perceived comparative SARS risk and poor personal efficacy beliefs about preventing SARS. Finns were also more likely than the Dutch to have high confidence in physicians on SARS issues but less likely to have received information from the Internet and have confidence in Internet information. Conclusions The study shed light on how two European populations differed substantially regarding lay responses to SARS. Understanding these differences is needed in formulating and executing communication and outbreak management.

Background Health risk perception and behavior of tourists during epidemics is a challenge for behavioral medicine.Purpose The purpose was to analyze associations of psychosocial factors and willingness to take health risks on holiday and business trips. Method Subjects (survey n=338) were Finnish tourists visiting South-East Asia during the avian influenza epidemic of 2004. On holidays, 13.8%, and on business trips, 6.3% would take (rather) high risks, 14.1% reported having tendency to take health risks. Willingness to take health risks on both kinds of trips was lower among those +40 years old than those <40. Comparatively high risk-taking tendency and high perceived HIV risk were related to the increased willingness to take health risks on both kinds of trips. Results On holidays, willingness to take health risks was related to trust in fate, and on business trips, this was also related to trust in God and less precautionary behavior of avoiding hand shaking, but also to higher estimation of other risks in life. Conclusion Younger travelers and those on holidays are willing to take more health risks than those who are older or on business trips. Travel advice during epidemics could be differentially targeted to different age groups and to holiday and business travelers.

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