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A Descriptive Study of United States-Based Human Trafficking Specialty Clinics

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Abstract

Human trafficking is a crime associated with serious adverse health and mental health outcomes. It has been estimated that more than 40 million people worldwide have been victimized, which has resulted in high rates of traumatic injuries, unwanted and high-risk pregnancies, mental illness, substance use disorders; and suicidality among trafficked persons. Little is known as to what models of health care delivery are best in engaging and sustaining the involvement of trafficked individuals with health care and trafficked individuals have reported discouragement and/or re-traumatization as a result of inadequate or fragmented care. To address the gap in knowledge regarding best practices for engaging and sustaining trafficked patients with health care, the authors of this study set out to identify and describe medical and mental health specialty clinics that work exclusively with trafficked adults, with the goal of assisting organizations and health care providers in program development and to improve clinical outcomes. A patient-centered, comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and trauma informed approach to clinical care is recommended for the treatment of trafficked patients. The authors strongly suggest that human trafficking specialty clinics prioritize psychiatric care and mental health services given the high rate of trauma and mental health issues among trafficked persons.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

    Frances Recknor, Mollie Gordon, John Coverdale & Phuong T. Nguyen

  2. Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Mishaal Gardezi

Authors
  1. Frances Recknor
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  2. Mollie Gordon
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  3. John Coverdale
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  4. Mishaal Gardezi
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  5. Phuong T. Nguyen
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Correspondence to Frances Recknor.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Baylor College of Medicine Institutional Review Board (Protocol H-40978) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Ethical Approval Retrospective Studies

The authors declare that this manuscript is not based on already available data or biological material.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Recknor, F., Gordon, M., Coverdale, J. et al. A Descriptive Study of United States-Based Human Trafficking Specialty Clinics. Psychiatr Q 91, 1–10 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-019-09691-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-019-09691-8

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