Cosmetic surgery tourism

Ruth Holliday and David Bell

Chapter 42 in Handbook on Medical Tourism and Patient Mobility, 2015, pp 421-430 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Cosmetic surgery tourism (CST) can be defined as travel to access procedures to enhance appearance. It is a rapidly growing form of medical tourism, normally paid for out-of-pocket and constructed as elective. This chapter presents an overview of CST informed by the results of the largest research project to date to investigate CST. Drawing on participant observation and over 200 interviews, the authors provide a picture of the CST sector and of patient experiences. The chapter describes the main drivers and the decision-making processes of patients, outlines the roles of key players such as facilitators and agents, considers the marketing of CST and in particular the role of the internet and social media, and discusses patient outcomes. CST is seen as a trailblazer for medical tourism and the globalisation of health care, and the chapter discusses the likely future developments in the field. Issues of regulation and debates about the ‘burden’ of CST on domestic health care are highlighted.

Keywords: Economics and Finance; Politics and Public Policy Social Policy and Sociology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781783471188.00055.xml (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:15607_42

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().