Background: Incidents of vector-borne disease have recently tripled in the United States. Chikungunya disease is a particularly common disease in the Caribbean, posing a threat to international tourists. However, the relationship between psychological variables derived from the protection motivation theory (PMT), and adoption of protective behaviors against the disease, is uncertain. This study sought to identify the psychological predictors of travelers’ protective health behaviors, specifically (1) appropriate clothing use, and (2) indoor spatial repellent use. Methods: An online, retrospective survey of U.S. international travelers to Caribbean destinations measured the five constructs of the PMT in the context of Chikungunya disease: Perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, perceived response efficacy, perceived self-efficacy, and knowledge. Hierarchical logistic regression analyzed whether these five theoretical constructs predicted the two protective behaviors in respondents who met study criteria (n = 184). Results: Results suggest that the interaction between chikungunya knowledge and perceived chikungunya severity predicts both appropriate clothing use (odds ratio [OR]: 1.95, CI: 1.18-3.25, P=0.010) and indoor spatial repellent use (OR: 1.55, CI: 1.05-2.29, P=0.029). In the cases of appropriate clothing use, the interaction between perceived chikungunya severity and perceived vulnerability was also a significant predictor (OR: 9.67, CI:1.23-75.80, P=0.031). Additionally, indoor spatial repellent use was also predicted by the interaction of chikungunya knowledge and perceived vulnerability (OR: 1.88, CI:1.18-3.02, P=0.009). Conclusion: Two-pronged educational approaches may be most efficacious in increasing protective health behaviors. Such efforts could reduce incidents of chikungunya disease and other vectorborne diseases in travel destinations featuring high exposure risks.

The Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines describe modular standards that journals can adopt to promote open science. The TOP Factor quantifies the extent to which journals adopt TOP in their policies, but there is no validated instrument to assess TOP implementation. Moreover, raters might assess the same policies differently. Instruments with objective questions are needed to assess TOP implementation reliably. In this study, we examined the interrater reliability and agreement of three new instruments for assessing TOP implementation in journal policies (instructions to authors), procedures (manuscript-submission systems), and practices (journal articles). Independent raters used these instruments to assess 339 journals from the behavioral, social, and health sciences. We calculated interrater agreement (IRA) and interrater reliability (IRR) for each of 10 TOP standards and for each question in our instruments (13 policy questions, 26 procedure questions, 14 practice questions). IRA was high for each standard in TOP; however, IRA might have been high by chance because most standards were not implemented by most journals. No standard had “excellent” IRR. Three standards had “good,” one had “moderate,” and six had “poor” IRR. Likewise, IRA was high for most instrument questions, and IRR was moderate or worse for 62%, 54%, and 43% of policy, procedure, and practice questions, respectively. Although results might be explained by limitations in our process, instruments, and team, we are unaware of better methods for assessing TOP implementation. Clarifying distinctions among different levels of implementation for each TOP standard might improve its implementation and assessment (study protocol: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-021-00112-8 ).