Travel Health Evidence

Evidence map

Travel food safety: what the evidence base looks like

11 publications, 0 of them trials and 6 syntheses. This page describes the shape of that literature rather than summarising its conclusions.

Updated 4 min read 11 citations

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What the evidence on travel food safety is made of Of 11 publications on this topic, the breakdown by study type: 6 meta-analysis, 2 review, 3 other. 623meta-analysis (6)review (2)other (3)
11 publications, by study type. Volume is not strength — the same count can be a settled question or a pile of commentary, and which one it is depends almost entirely on this breakdown. Harvested from PubMed and Crossref; publication type as recorded by the source.

What this literature is made of

The synthesis is ahead of the primary literature here — reviews and meta-analyses drawing on a modest number of underlying studies. Treat confident conclusions with the caution the sample size deserves.

The distinction that matters most is between synthesis and primary research. A meta-analysis pools trials and is the closest thing to a settled answer a field produces. A narrative review is one group's reading of the same material and can be selective without being dishonest. Counting them together, which most citation counts do, obscures exactly the thing you want to know.

When the travel food safety literature was published Publication years for the 11 papers on this topic, grouped into bands from before 2015 through to 2023 onwards. 2023 onwards6 papers2015-20193 papers2020-20221 papersBefore 20151 papers
Still active. The most recent paper here is from 2025, so this is a field where an answer written today may not hold for long. Publication years as recorded by PubMed and Crossref.

How this page is built

Everything above is computed from the citations this site harvested from PubMed and Crossref, not written by hand. When the weekly harvest finds a new paper on this topic, these counts change and the characterisation changes with them. That is the point: a hand-written claim about how strong an evidence base is starts decaying the day it is written.

Publication type is taken as the source records it. That is imperfect — journals label inconsistently, and a paper indexed as a "review" may be a systematic one — so treat the bands as approximate. They are accurate enough to distinguish a trial literature from a commentary literature, which is the distinction that matters.

Parking bays and picnic tables at a rest area screened by trees
Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The strongest work on this topic

Ordered by study design first, then recency. The full set is listed in the references below.

  1. Towards shortening the duration of antibiotic therapy for Lyme borreliosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis — Raffetin A, Henningsson AJ, Ornstein K et al., 2025, meta-analysis
  2. Non-pharmacological interventions designed to support carriers of multi-drug-resistant organisms (MDROs): a systematic literature review — Gaube S, Pan M, Rath A et al., 2025, systematic review
  3. Selected laboratory-based biomarkers for assessing vitamin A deficiency in at-risk individuals — Gannon BM, Huey SL, Mehta NH et al., 2025, meta-analysis
  4. The effectiveness of anti-inflammatory and anti-seizure medication for individuals with single enhancing lesion neurocysticercosis: A meta-analysis and expert group-based consensus recommendations — Abraham A, Bustos JA, Carabin H et al., 2021, meta-analysis
  5. Exit and Entry Screening Practices for Infectious Diseases among Travelers at Points of Entry: Looking for Evidence on Public Health Impact — Mouchtouri VA, Christoforidou EP, An der Heiden M et al., 2019, systematic review
  6. Source attribution of human campylobacteriosis using a meta-analysis of case-control studies of sporadic infections — Domingues AR, Pires SM, Halasa T et al., 2012, meta-analysis
  7. Safe Living Following Solid Organ Transplantation — Blair BM, 2019, review
  8. Travel Medicine — Leung DT, LaRocque RC, Ryan ET, 2018, review
  9. Burden of 375 diseases and injuries, risk-attributable burden of 88 risk factors, and healthy life expectancy in 204 countries and territories, including 660 subnational locations, 1990-2023: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 202301637-X) — Unattributed, 2025, journal article
  10. Global age-sex-specific all-cause mortality and life expectancy estimates for 204 countries and territories and 660 subnational locations, 1950-2023: a demographic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 202301330-3) — Unattributed, 2025, journal article
How much research is there on travel food safety?
11 publications are indexed here, of which 0 are trials and 6 are syntheses.
Does more research mean a stronger conclusion?
No. Composition matters more than volume — five randomised trials support a claim far better than fifty commentaries, and citation counts do not distinguish between them.
How current is this?
The most recent paper indexed here is from 2025. The set is refreshed weekly from PubMed and Crossref.
Why does this page not tell me the answer?
Because summarising a literature into a conclusion requires reading it, and doing that automatically is how confident nonsense gets published. This page tells you how much weight a conclusion could bear; the articles on this site do the interpreting.

References

Every citation below links to the original peer-reviewed record on PubMed or via DOI. Nothing here is a substitute for medical advice.

  1. Selected laboratory-based biomarkers for assessing vitamin A deficiency in at-risk individuals Gannon BM, Huey SL, Mehta NH, et al. · The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025 · Meta-analysis DOIPubMed 40433851Full text
  2. Towards shortening the duration of antibiotic therapy for Lyme borreliosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis Raffetin A, Henningsson AJ, Ornstein K, et al. · Infection · 2025 · Meta-analysis DOIPubMed 40246800
  3. Non-pharmacological interventions designed to support carriers of multi-drug-resistant organisms (MDROs): a systematic literature review Gaube S, Pan M, Rath A, et al. · The Journal of hospital infection · 2025 · Systematic review DOIPubMed 40816599
  4. The effectiveness of anti-inflammatory and anti-seizure medication for individuals with single enhancing lesion neurocysticercosis: A meta-analysis and expert group-based consensus recommendations Abraham A, Bustos JA, Carabin H, et al. · PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021 · Meta-analysis DOIPubMed 33788843Full text
  5. Exit and Entry Screening Practices for Infectious Diseases among Travelers at Points of Entry: Looking for Evidence on Public Health Impact Mouchtouri VA, Christoforidou EP, An der Heiden M, et al. · International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019 · Systematic review DOIPubMed 31766548Full text
  6. Source attribution of human campylobacteriosis using a meta-analysis of case-control studies of sporadic infections Domingues AR, Pires SM, Halasa T, et al. · Epidemiology and infection · 2012 · Meta-analysis DOIPubMed 22214729
  7. Safe Living Following Solid Organ Transplantation Blair BM · The Surgical clinics of North America · 2019 · Review DOIPubMed 30471739
  8. Travel Medicine Leung DT, LaRocque RC, Ryan ET · Annals of internal medicine · 2018 · Review DOIPubMed 29297035
  9. Global age-sex-specific all-cause mortality and life expectancy estimates for 204 countries and territories and 660 subnational locations, 1950-2023: a demographic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023 Lancet (London, England) · 2025 · Journal article DOIPubMed 41092927Full text
  10. Burden of 375 diseases and injuries, risk-attributable burden of 88 risk factors, and healthy life expectancy in 204 countries and territories, including 660 subnational locations, 1990-2023: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023 Lancet (London, England) · 2025 · Journal article DOIPubMed 41092926Full text
  11. Global, regional, and national burden of stroke and its risk factors, 1990-2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021 The Lancet. Neurology · 2024 · Journal article DOIPubMed 39304265Full text