Impact of COVID-19 on a Medium-Sized Travel Medicine Clinic in Eastern Pennsylvania, USA

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic (COVID) disrupted international travel. We sought to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patient volume, traveler demographics, and income of our travel clinic in Pennsylvania, USA. Methods: We extracted de-identified pre-travel data on 3,510 pre-travel consultations for adults during: Pre-COVID-19 (January 2018-December 2019), Early COVID-19 (April 2020-March 2022) and Late COVID-19 (April 2022-March 2023). We compared traveler demographics, destinations, purpose of travel, medical conditions, and number of vaccinations administered over time, and we obtained our clinic’s revenue from our financial database (TruSource) from the Pre-COVID-19 period to the Early and Late COVID-19 periods. Results: We observed 84% and 85% relative decreases in traveler volume and revenue respectively from the Pre-COVID-19 to the Early COVID-19 period. The proportional decrease in volume was highest for travelers over 65 years of age, decreasing from 16–11%. Of those that sought care during Early COVID-19, proportionally fewer travelers had multiple co-morbid conditions and were taking chronic medications. Trip length increased and there was a significant proportional increase in travel to Africa. Travel to visit friends or family and for service work also proportionally increased during Early-COVID-19 versus Pre-COVID-19. Clinic volume and revenue began to increase in Late COVID-19 but did not return to Pre-COVID levels. Conclusions: The COVID pandemic resulted in a large reduction in patient volume and revenue in our academic-based Pennsylvania travel clinic. We saw substantial changes in our traveler demographics, destinations, as well as reasons and durations of travel.