How Can Nurses Identify and Assist Human Trafficking Victims?

Wikimedia Commons/ AlvaroGzP

What do sex workers have in common with nannies, housekeepers, farmworkers, janitorial and restaurant staff, and factory and construction workers? They all work in settings where victims of human trafficking are commonly found.

Human trafficking is big business in the United States.

Our country is reported to be the second-largest market globally for women and children trafficked into sex work. Sex trafficking is the main form of trafficking among U.S. citizens, while forced labor trafficking is more common among foreign nationals living here.

Globally, human trafficking is second only to drug trafficking among criminal industries. Because nurses are “everywhere,” we are very likely to come into contact with human trafficking victims at some point. Would you know how to recognize one?

Possible indicators of human trafficking.

In a 2011 AJN article, Donna Sabella shares several possible indicators of human trafficking that warrant further investigation, including:

2018-12-13T08:10:08-05:00December 13th, 2018|Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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Mental Health Nursing: Transcending the Limitations of Words

When I met Dorothy, she was always counting. Her chapped lips moved nonstop as she chanted random numbers. She’d increase the speed, as if that would help her to reach the end quickly—but since the numbers didn’t appear to be in any sensible order, this loomed before her like an impossible task…

The challenge of mental health nursing.

Illustration by Pat Kinsella. All rights reserved.

This month’s Reflections column, “Dimensions of Dorothy,” begins with this harrowing look at a woman in the grip of a mental health crisis. Author Maureen Bonatch goes on to poignantly describe how this illness can “steal someone’s identity and overwhelm their self-control.”

As a new nurse at the state psychiatric hospital, Bonatch definitely had a “new normal” to adjust to at work. As she observed the manifestations of severe mental illness, she also developed insight into why some had so few visitors: “It had to be difficult,” she writes, “to helplessly observe as an illness crept in to hold the person you knew and loved hostage.”

An inadequately valued area of […]

2018-11-20T10:07:55-05:00November 20th, 2018|mental illness, narratives, Nursing|0 Comments
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Acute Flaccid Myelitis: The Investigation Continues

The headlines of the past several weeks about kids with a polio-like illness have been pretty scary. The idea that a healthy child could suddenly be sidelined with extreme muscle weakness is a nightmare scenario for the parents of young children. While frustratingly little is known about acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), the good news is that it remains quite rare, affecting less than one in a million people in the U.S. each year.

According to the CDC, there have been a total of 404 confirmed cases of AFM in the U.S. since 2014, with a median age of eight years. The epidemiologic curve of cases indicates that the illness is seasonal, peaking in late summer and early fall. Oddly, the number of cases spiked in 2014, 2016, and 2018, while there were fewer cases during 2015 and 2017.

Signs and symptoms of AFM.

AFM often follows a respiratory illness or fever. Limb weakness (often unilateral) then occurs suddenly, progressing rapidly within hours or a few days. There may be facial muscle weakness, problems with eye movement, or speech or swallowing difficulties, but mental status generally is not affected. One death has been reported.

No clear cause.

Poliovirus, non-polio enteroviruses, adenoviruses, and West Nile virus are known to (rarely) […]

2018-11-12T08:25:04-05:00November 12th, 2018|infectious diseases, Public health|0 Comments
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What Can Nurses Do to Influence Health in Their Communities?

What can I do as just one nurse?

As a nurse, I have often heard my colleagues question their ability to influence health in their communities. At times I have felt this same sentiment. What can I do as just one nurse?

Nurses have a unique perspective of how a community’s physical, social, and economic environment can affect patients’ health. And as we expand our understanding of what creates health, nurses have the opportunity to be a powerful voice when it comes to influencing the health of their communities.

Nightingale as precedent.

Nightingale in Scutari ward during Crimean War/Library of Congress

Nurses working to improve health through environmental modification is not new. The story of Florence Nightingale is well-known. As a nurse, Nightingale recognized changes needed to improve the health of soldiers in a hospital during the Crimean War, when more of the hospitalized soldiers were dying from the spread of infectious disease than from war-related injuries. Through her work with a group of nurses, she was able […]

2018-11-09T08:50:06-05:00November 9th, 2018|Nursing, nursing roles, Public health|3 Comments
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Babies at the Border: Reflections on Nursing on Ellis Island

Immigrants at Ellis Island. Library of Congress.

For the past few years, the nation’s attention has been repeatedly drawn to “the immigration problem” on the southern borders of the United States. This past summer, images of babies screaming for their mothers as families were separated, and photos of teens and young children peering through chain-link fences—with foil blankets crumpled in the background—tugged at heartstrings. With recent fear-mongering about a caravan of refugees making their way through Mexico toward the United States, the issue is once again taking center stage.

A nation of immigrants.

With each image, my thoughts turn to our nation’s long history of regulating immigration. After all, we are a nation of immigrants. Many of our ancestors sought religious freedom, freedom from persecution, or economic opportunity in America. That history is replete with conflicting policies: from the exclusion of Chinese, prejudice against those of Irish and Italian descent, and the deportation of those who were seen as “unfit” physically or mentally to enter the country, to decrees from the president that all immigrants be treated with respect.

A history of working with immigrants ‘in a middle place.’

For over a century, nurses have worked with immigrants in “a middle place”—balancing the needs of newly arrived families with their […]

2018-11-02T10:17:29-04:00November 2nd, 2018|Nursing, nursing history, Public health|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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