Barbados is the first country in the Eastern Caribbean to conduct a survey on the sexual attitudes and behaviour of tourists whilst on vacation on the island.
The survey, which started in 2009, is the combined effort between the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Health which, according to the Ministry of Tourism’s HIV/AIDS coordinator, Madge Dalrymple, would seek to answer the questions of “who, when, where and how . . . to identify the specific vulnerabilities and risk behavour of tourists with respect to STI and HIV transmission.
This is to examine and explore the sexual attitudes and practices of tourists in Barbados with respect to STI and HIV transmission,” said Dalrymple, noting that there was a “lack” of imperial data on the linkages between HIV/AIDS and tourism.
She was speaking during the seventh CCAS (Caribbean Cytometry and Analytical Society) HIV/AIDS Workshop titled Cost Effective Management And Quality Laboratory Monitoring Of Individuals With HIV And Coinfection With TB, at the Accra Beach Resort. The workshop started Sunday and ends on Friday.
A pilot survey was conducted in January of last year, which was later revised and amended and during the months of February to March and August to October close to 800 self-administered questionnaires were completed by tourists, some to “varying degree”, along the East, West and South coast and Bridgetown .
HIV/AIDS programme worker with the Ministry of Health, Nicole Gilkes told the Daily Nation that there was a reason for the absence of statistics at this time, noting that they were still in the process of analysing the data.
“The reason we do not want to put the results out there yet is because we are doing a qualitative phase as well. So once both of those findings are compiled then they will be vetted by the Ministry of Health and we will release them.
“What we found in the quantitative part of the study was that approximately 12 per cent of the tourists were engaged in some type of sexual activity with locals whilst on vacation in Barbados.
But in the qualitative part what we want to do is to narrow in on some of the preliminary findings and try to find out the why of it rather than just coming up with numbers that can be interpreted in many ways,” said Gilkes. (MM)
