Health information, attitudes and actions at religious venues: Evidence from hajj pilgrims

Abstract

Mass gatherings for sporting events, music shows, and religious needs continue to grow in our urban areas, requiring local authorities to develop safety procedures to mitigate the challenges of keeping the attendees safe. These challenges are even more pronounced at pilgrimage venues where social distancing and contact avoidance are difficult as pilgrims are required to perform various rituals in close proximity with others, in a sequential manner, either daily or weekly, as per their religious tenets. Over two million pilgrims attend the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia annually. Keeping the local and visiting pilgrims safe from crowd crush, sunstroke, skin infections, recurrence of prior medical issues, and contagious diseases requires the Saudi government to allocate huge investments for health communication and prevention programs every year. However, there is no evidence to date that has empirically tested whether Hajj pilgrims’ are able to receive such information and are subsequently adopting various health promoting behaviors. This study aims to do that by framing it within the Health Belief Model. Data collected and analyzed from 245 pilgrims in Makkah between September 9 th -19 th , 2017 suggests that roughly 48% of the pilgrims adopted all five protective measures. However, language barriers, limited health care facilities, and difficulties in purchasing prescription mediciens were cited as impediments to adopting healthy measures.The study concludes with recommendations for the KSA government agencies, Hajj authorities, Mission authorities and pilgrims, during various phases of travel-- i.e. pre-travel, during the pilgrimage and post-travel, in light of new emerging health threats.

Adherence of Healthcare Workers to Saudi Management Guidelines of Heat-Related Illnesses during Hajj Pilgrimage

“…The vast majority (93.1%) of HRI cases in this study occurred among pilgrims from outside Saudi Arabia, which is similar to a previous study conducted among pilgrims [12]. This could be due to the familiarity of the Saudi residents with the nature of their environment and extreme temperature rise, especially during the summer season and due to the public awareness spread throughout the Kingdom before the Hajj season [39].…”

Barriers to and Facilitators of Asthma Care For Malaysian Hajj Pilgrims: A Qualitative Study

“…Most pilgrims from around the world including Malaysia are elderly with multimorbidity and at substantial risk of further morbidity and mortality, so adequate preparation including the understanding of the disease and the impact of the Hajj is essential 24 . Pre-travel advice and educational health campaigns were found to be associated with positive health practices amongst pilgrims during Hajj 25,26 . In Malaysia, around 60% of people with asthma were found to have limited health literacy 27 .…”

Towards associating negative experiences and recommendations reported by Hajj pilgrims in a mass-scale survey

“…Several research studies report diversified real-life negative experiences faced by the Hajj pilgrims [25] , [17] , [27] , [28] . Ali et al, 2020 [25] discussed different issues and challenges in Hajj management from Bangladesh's perspective.…”

“…Considering health issues, many studies investigated pilgrims' health condition during the Hajj pilgrimage and different factors associated with it [17] , [30] , [31] , [32] . Taibah et al, 2020 [17] inquired about which health-related threats concern foreign Hajj pilgrims visiting Saudi Arabia, how they typically seek information to be better prepared against these threats, and what economic, social, language, and cultural barriers they face. Noweir et al, 2008 [30] describe the relation between heat casualties and climate heat load during Hajj seasons.…”

“…Some of the negative experiences (e.g., health, heavy crowds, way-finding, and accommodation problems) are already investigated in the existing literature [13] , [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] . However, such existing studies have some limitations.…”