The children's medical tourism research network is a global group who are interested in the topic of children's medical tourism. More than 50 people in 15 countries are currently signed up to our emails. Anyone can join the group and attend our meetings. We have been meeting informally since 2021, and recently received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to develop research. We are currently organising a workshop to take place in Melbourne in 2024, please go to the web page for details of how you can join in.

What is "children's medical tourism?"

Children's medical tourism has been defined as “the bi-directional movement of children (less than 18 years of age) to and from a country to seek advice, diagnosis and treatments”. Although the words "medical tourism" are commonly used to describe travelling to another country for medical reasons, most medical travellers go abroad for serious reasons and do not see themselves as 'tourists'.

Children's medical tourism includes many different activities that take place for a range of motivations. Parents often seek treatment for their children abroad because the treatment or advice isn't available in their own country, is too expensive or they don't trust the quality of what is available locally. Parents may also go abroad because they have cultural, family or linguistic connections with another country, or feel better supported.

Treatments and diagnoses on offer may be well established, or may be new and only available in certain places. New treatments may be widely recognised or based on disputed, inconsistent, or even absent evidence.

Some treatments may be unavailable because they are legally restricted or prohibited in the originating country, but not in one or more countries abroad.

Why is children's medical tourism important?

Children's medical tourism is part of a growing international healthcare market. For example about 0.25 million UK travellers go abroad for medical reasons, while Nigerians spend $1Bn annually on overseas medicine. Medical tourism involving adults is already subject to lots of research, but very little is known about children's medical tourism.

This is an important research gap, because children are very different from adults. They have different needs, sometimes suffer from different illnesses and usually do not make the decision to travel abroad themselves. Parents (with very few exceptions) are dedicated to doing the best for their children, and this can make parents especially vulnerable to exploitation if their child is sick.

Children's medical tourism has the potential to widen choices, spur innovation and contribute to economic growth. But it also raises many medical, ethical, economic, regulatory and legal issues. These affect the way children's medical tourism is viewed by professionals and mean that parents may be unsure which overseas providers to trust. 

How many children travel abroad for treatment?

Nobody has tried to answer this question, so we simply don't know the answer.

This is not because children do not travel. Although information is very patchy, studies show that, of patients from 109 countries who received medical treatment in Turkey between 2012 and 2014, 10,261 were treated by children's specialists; 5% of retinoblastoma patients dianosed in 153 countries in 2017 travelled abroad for treatment, and; 10% of UK children with neuroblastoma went abroad for treatment and second opinions overseas between 2017 and 2022.

What issues does children's medical tourism raise?

Children's medical tourism raises many important issues. These include:

• Lack of understanding why parents and children travel abroad.
• Lack of understanding what parents and children who travel abroad need.
• Public health and environmental challenges raised by the global movement of patients.
• Barriers to participation in the global health market erected by international inequalities and immigration controls.
• Economic and social impacts of directing sometimes very limited national healthcare resources toward incoming health tourists rather than needy local populations.
• The varying cultural status of children resulting in different institutions taking radically different approaches to the wellbeing of a child and/or the child’s parents.
• The cost to long-term privacy of the frequent use of crowdfunding to meet the costs of children's treatment.
• Widespread gaps in international accreditation making it difficult for parents to judge quality, and making them vulnerable to exploitation by illegitimate providers.
• Differences in national laws making redress difficult if things go wrong.

These are just a few of the potential challenges of children’s medical tourism. Some are shared with adult medical tourism, many more are unique to children. What unites them is that we have no or very little information to begin to answer them. We need to study these issues to develop trustworthy and high-quality international children’s medicine that meets the needs of children, parents and health professionals equitably and according to agreed international standards.

What does the children's medical tourism research network do?

We provide a forum to make contact with others in this area to develop research. Our members work together to write research papers and apply for research funding to answer some of the difficult questions about children's medical tourism.

Who can join the children's medical tourism research network?

Anyone. A few parents who have had experience of medical tourism are members, but we would love to hear from more parents and health institutions as well as academics and health professionals.

We would also love to hear your experiences of children's medical tourism so we can share them with others on these web pages.

You can get in touch by emailing Giles or Neera, or you can send your details by filling out this form - we are always happy to meet and discuss specific projects and collaborations.

How is the network funded?

Giles Birchley (University of Bristol) and Neera Bhatia (Deakin University) are currently funded to develop an international research network by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The grant reference is AH/X013146/1