VIDEO: Physicians have key role in identifying human trafficking victims

SAN FRANCISCO — Many human trafficking victims have contact with health care providers while they are being exploited, making it critical that providers know how to identify and care for them, speakers say in this Healio video.

In the video from the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, Brenda Cartujano, MD, a child adolescent psychiatry fellow at the University of Washington Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Jinal Patel, MBBS, and Erica Cohenmehr, MD, both psychiatry PGY2 residents at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, discuss their project aimed at making health care providers more adept at screening for victims of human trafficking, as well as providing victims with trauma-informed care and connecting them with resources. The researchers said they have developed victim screening training for health care providers, which has been well-received by psychiatry residents, social workers and others.

The team cited data indicating that nearly 88% of U.S. sex trafficking victims reported at least some contact with a health care provider during their exploitation, with EDs being the most frequent treatment site by far.

“That really hit home the importance of educating these physicians on, first, human trafficking, and then also creating a tool for them to be able to screen these individuals and understand who might be affected by human trafficking,” Patel said.

Reference:

• Lederer LJ, et al. Annals of Health Law. 2014;23(1):61-91.