Frontline Medical Professionals' Ability to Recognize and Respond to Suspected Youth Sex Trafficking

Abstract

Objectives: Many youth sex trafficking victims visit health care facilities while being trafficked. Little is known regarding whether frontline medical professionals recognize risk factors or are aware of effective interviewing approaches to identify and intervene for youth victims. The aim of the present study was to assess frontline medical professionals' knowledge of youth sex trafficking, adolescent development, and forensically informed interviewing to provide guidance for professional training.

Methods: Two hundred seventy-seven frontline medical professionals [first responders and emergency department (ED)/clinical professionals] in Southern California completed an online survey about their background, training, perceptions of likely youth sex trafficking scenarios, knowledge of adolescent development, sex trafficking, and forensically informed interviewing.

Results: Nearly all professionals recognized risk and the need to collect additional information, yet few (1% first responders and 12% ED) recognized that risk as sex trafficking. Forty-six percent of first responders also indicated that responding to nonmedical needs was outside of their job responsibilities. A mixed model analysis of covariance revealed significant interactions of gender by domain ( P = 0.01) and domain by training ( P = 0.045). Women evidenced better knowledge (78% accuracy) about sex trafficking and interviewing (73%) than adolescent development (64%), whereas men were more accurate with sex trafficking (64%) than adolescent development (61%) and interviewing (62%). For domain by training, tests of within subjects' contrasts showed a quadratic relation ( P = 0.02) was the best fit model, where training was most strongly associated with accuracy in sex trafficking knowledge.

Conclusions: Frontline medical professionals are lacking in their knowledge of youth sex trafficking, interviewing, and especially adolescent development. An area in which interventions can be targeted is with training (because it emerged in a significant interaction). Training could combat unrepresentative depictions of victims, improve understanding of common victim characteristics, and highlight how forensically informed interviewing can improve medical professionals' ability to gather crucial history about victims' experiences and needs.