Human Trafficking Assessment: A Descriptive Qualitative Study

Abstract

Background: Human trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel a person toprovide labor or sex, and has become a public health crisis. It occurs regardless of sex, gender identity, and race and is difficult to identify due to a multitude of complexities. Furthermore, it is suggested that a majority of human trafficking victims are seen by healthcare providers at some point during their captivity; however, there is a failure to recognize these victims. Despite these statistics, little research has been completed on how healthcare professionals assess human trafficking. Method: A qualitative descriptive method was used to answer the research question of howhuman trafficking is assessed. Healthcare professionals who worked in urgent care, family practice clinics, women’s health clinics, academic children’s hospitals, urban Indian health clinics, veteran’s affairs, and emergency departments participated in the study. Recruitment continued until saturation or a sufficient sample occurred. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and then analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results: Seventeen participants enrolled in the study. This study found that the patient-providerinteraction is one of the most important pieces when assessing human trafficking victims and that the presentation of someone living through human trafficking may vary on how they present to healthcare facilities. Human trafficking assessment and institutional, community, and individual bounds include a lack of policies to assess human trafficking, underutilization of available screening tools, infrastructure that does not support resources for healthcare professionals and human trafficking victims, and a lack of healthcare professional knowledge and awareness of human trafficking. Conclusion: Currently, human trafficking is inconsistently being assessed by healthcare professionals. Much of this can be attributed to a lack of awareness and utilization of human trafficking screening tools that are available to healthcare professionals, not having policies and procedures to guide clinicians, and few training programs to educate healthcare professionals. These barriers must be addressed to increase the identification of human trafficking victims to improve health outcomes for this population.