Leading Anti-Trafficking Group Publishes National Research Priorities to Address Human Trafficking
LOS ANGELES, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HEAL Trafficking, the nation's leading public health anti-trafficking organization, published today a national research agenda to tackle the problem of human trafficking. The research agenda "Public Health Research Priorities to Address Human Trafficking," appears in the latest issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Given the paucity of research on trafficking, HEAL Trafficking engaged its membership in a consensus development process last year to develop its national research agenda. In the Opinion Editorial, HEAL Trafficking proposes five priorities that public health researchers should focus on in the decade ahead to make meaningful progress on preventing and responding to human trafficking in the Unites States.
"We believe the public health approach to anti-trafficking efforts is a very powerful one and it needs, of course, to be predicated upon a robust program of research," says Dr. Emily Rothman, Chair of the HEAL Trafficking Research Committee and Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at Boston University School of Public Health. "Achieving the five priorities we outline in our national research agenda will drive substantial advances in reaching our ultimate goal, reducing human trafficking and ending the suffering of people who experience it," says Dr. Hanni Stoklosa, Emergency Medicine physician at Harvard Medical School and Executive Director of HEAL Trafficking.
The five proposed priorities for public health research on human trafficking are:
- Determine the prevalence and incidence of human trafficking with better precision.
- Estimate the cost burden of human trafficking.
- Identify risk and protective factors for human trafficking victimization, perpetration, survival and resilience.
- Investigate effectiveness of healthcare screening and response protocols.
- Implement and evaluate human trafficking prevention strategies.
A link to the full AJPH Perspective can be found here http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2017.303858.
About HEAL Trafficking
Health, Education, Advocacy, Linkage (HEAL) Trafficking is a multidisciplinary network of professionals whose mission is to shift the anti-trafficking paradigm toward approaches rooted in public health and trauma-informed care. HEAL comprises more than 1000 members, including physicians, mental health and behavioral specialists, nurses, advanced practice clinicians, social workers, public health professionals, attorneys, administrators, and researchers. More information about HEAL Trafficking can be found on www.HEALtrafficking.org.
SOURCE HEAL Trafficking
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