Why Studying Abroad Is Safer Than You May Think

Bob Handelman for NYU Global Programs

The deaths of Americans studying overseas make headlines back home, but going abroad is no riskier than staying on campus. In fact, it might be less dangerous.

A new comparison of health and safety data finds that death rates are lower for students on study-abroad programs than for those on American campuses. Students in the United States are an estimated 2.18 times as likely to die as their classmates overseas.

The report, which is based on insurance-claims data, was published by the Forum on Education Abroad, an association of American and overseas colleges and independent study-abroad programs, and is based on work by a statistical-analysis firm.

But at a time when lawmakers, both on Capitol Hill and in several state legislatures, are considering measures to regulate study abroad, will data be enough to combat perceptions that it is a hazardous activity?

To conduct the study, the forum persuaded two international-insurance providers to share claims data from 2014 for 147,000 insured students, close to half the number of American students who studied internationally that year. (Most colleges require students to have specialized insurance while overseas, which can cover everything from doctors’ visits to evacuations during medical — or geopolitical — crises.) The claims included four student deaths, two accidental and two related to pre-existing medical conditions. Ten percent of the students abroad filed some sort of claim.

The study-abroad data were then compared to a 2013 study of mortality rates and causes of death for students on 157 American college campuses. When annualized to an academic year, the mortality rate for students abroad was 13.5 per 100,000 students, compared with 29.4 deaths per 100,000 for those studying on their home campuses.

Put another way, the number of fatalities overseas would have to more than double, to nine, before going abroad would be deadlier than staying in the United States. And that finding would not be statistically significant.

Brian J. Whalen, president of the Forum on Education Abroad, says this is the first fact-based analysis showing what many educators believe but have not been able to prove — that international study is not riskier than domestic education.

While the organization has maintained a voluntary database of deaths, accidents, and other incidents abroad since 2010, it has not collected enough data to draw meaningful conclusions. “There has been a lack of information on the risks students face overseas,” Mr. Whalen says. “So when there is a student death or tragedy overseas, there’s just a headline and no context.”

Mr. Whalen hopes to repeat the study in the future and expand it to include more students and more information on nonfatal injuries. It was not possible to compare accident data in the current report because such information was not available for students on American campuses.

Study-abroad directors and advisers say the report’s findings will be useful when talking with students and parents, as well as with university administrators who raise concerns about potential dangers overseas, especially after high-profile events like terror attacks or violent protests.

Lawmakers Get Involved

Gary Langsdale, university risk officer at Pennsylvania State University, agrees that study abroad is a “perennial hot topic” among his colleagues. Expectations of colleges’ role in keeping students safe overseas often differ from when they are on more familiar turf, he says, especially as a growing number of students go abroad on trips led by faculty members. “Those faculty leaders are perceived to be mother and father, 24-7,” says Mr. Langsdale, a past president of the University Risk Management and Insurance Association.

More recently, elected officials, too, have been weighing in. Minnesota approved legislation in 2014 requiring colleges there to publicly report student deaths, accidents, and injuries abroad. Lawmakers in at least two other states have introduced similar bills, as have members of Congress.

The measures have been pushed by an advocacy organization called the ClearCause Foundation, whose founder, Sheryl Hill, argues that there is not enough transparency about the risks of studying abroad. “Colleges are like, ‘Shhh, you don’t want to scare the other students,’” says Ms. Hill, whose teenage son died while on a high-school exchange trip in Japan.

New York is one state considering legislation, but Bruce Sillner, dean of international programs at the State University of New York at New Paltz, argues that the new report demonstrates that colleges have already been doing a good job of protecting students overseas.

Mr. Sillner, who has been in international education for three decades, traces the increased attention to the September 2001 terror attacks. Though the attacks were on American soil, he says, they drew attention to the risks citizens face overseas.

At New Paltz, where 22 percent of the student body goes abroad, students go through a pre-departure orientation that’s heavy on health and safety, and Mr. Sillner and his counterparts on other SUNY campuses regularly meet to troubleshoot problems and identify best practices.

Increasingly, colleges are establishing dedicated positions to deal with international risk management. Christina Carroll holds such a job at Florida State University. She develops emergency procedures, monitors hot spots abroad — What’s the risk of further terror attacks in Turkey? Should students stay out of Brazil because of the Zika virus? — to help administrators decide whether to suspend programs, and keeps tabs on the roughly 2,260 students Florida State sends overseas each year.

“I know when a student has the flu, my program director knows when a student has a sprained ankle,” Ms. Carroll says. “This is something we’ve been prioritizing all along.”

Karin Fischer writes about international education, colleges and the economy, and other issues. She’s on Twitter @karinfischer, and her email address is karin.fischer@chronicle.com.