Roles of Health Policy and Organizational Structure in Quality Improvement within Health Care Environments

Human trafficking is a prevalent and major planetary human rights violation issue (Tiller & Reynolds, 2020). It causes significant physical and mental health issues requiring multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaborative efforts to care for victims. This position paper advocates for an interdisciplinary approach to the issue of human trafficking: Roles of Health Policy and Organizational Structure in Quality Improvement within Health Care Environments.

Healthcare Policy as Found at the ICN or WHO Website

The International Council of Nurses (ICN) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are both focused on promoting health policies that create systems that address health crises and improve population health outcomes at a global level. Both organizations view healthcare policy as the framework for guiding professional practice, healthcare regulations, and efforts toward improving socio-economic welfare.

The ICN views healthcare professionals, especially nurses, as critical in addressing global health and socio-economic welfare crises, including human trafficking (International Council of Nurses, n.d.). The Council and WHO push for policies that focus on the elimination of the root causes of human trafficking while providing protection, rehabilitative, and integrative care services to victims of trafficking victims and survivors.

Position on Human Trafficking as a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP)

From a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner’s view, human trafficking is a gross violation of human rights. It is a form of modern-day slavery that impacts people worldwide. Regardless of gender, age, or race, everyone is at risk of being trafficked. Many victims are forced into sex work, labor, or even have their organs removed for illicit purposes (Cockbain & Bowers, 2019; Holland, 2020).

Additionally, trafficked people are used by transnational criminal organizations to carry out illicit operations and as drug mules (Goździak, 2021).  Survivors experience increased levels of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, diseases including communicable and sexually transmitted diseases, and social stigma (Hopper & Kinnish, 2024). This makes human trafficking a risk to both individual and global health.

At the same time, these survivors experience multiple barriers to access to healthcare and social support, including legal, economic, and social resource constraints, health, political, and economic systems’ discrimination and complexities, fear of deportation, language barriers, and stigma. Therefore, an intersectoral and interdisciplinary approach comprising collaborative efforts from local, national, and global players is essential to care for human trafficking survivors and prevent human trafficking (Cockbain & Bowers, 2019).

The PMHNP’s Social Responsibility to Stakeholders

Three major stakeholders that nurses have a social responsibility to are the survivors of human trafficking, the public health system, and policymakers.

Responsibility to the Survivors of Human Trafficking

Nurses, especially PMHNPs, are majorly the first point of contact within the healthcare systems for most survivors of trafficking. Therefore, the nurses have a responsibility to provide therapeutic physical and mental healthcare (Lazzarino et al., 2024), and supportive care to these survivors to regain their wellbeing. They also have the responsibility to help such survivors navigate the barriers and complexities within the legal and health systems to ensure that they are protected and have access to needed social, mental, and physical health support.

Responsibility to Public Health Systems

Human trafficking risk factors and outcomes have significant negative impacts on public health (Wood, 2020). Therefore, nurses who come in contact with survivors of or individuals actively experiencing human trafficking must adhere to the protocols of safe handling and reporting such cases, and providing timely care to reduce risk to the individual and the health system. They can also improve the readiness of the public health systems to manage survivors and public health threats associated with human trafficking through training healthcare professionals on the identification and management of victims and survivors.

Responsibility to Policymakers

Nurses being frontline workers have the power to develop and advocate for policies that help counter human trafficking and support survivors. They can provide evidence-based recommendations for policy development including recommendations for funding, support, caring for, and integration of survivors, and identification and protection of at-risk populations.

Organizations with a Vested Interest in Human Trafficking

There are several organizations with vested interests in human trafficking. Two major organizations are the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) and the International Justice Mission (IJM). CAST is focused on mitigating and ending human trafficking through the provision of support services to survivors and communities. The organization provides education services to communities, advocates for related policies, and focuses on empowering the survivors through education and providing social and economic opportunities.

IJM is another intercontinental organization that focuses on combating and preventing human trafficking and slavery by providing rescue and other support services to people in poverty and experiencing violence. The organization also supports and funds efforts towards bringing human trafficking criminals to justice.

Importance of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Human Trafficking

An interdisciplinary approach is important in caring for human trafficking survivors and the issue of human trafficking since it is a complex phenomenon. Human trafficking can be considered to be a crime against the state and the individual and a gross violation of fundamental human rights (Tolstikov-Mast & Aghajanian, 2023). People who experience human trafficking are exposed to physical harm, physical and mental abuse and traumas, neglect, exploitation, and exposure to diseases. Such individuals are at a heightened risk of developing significant physical and psychological health problems (Corbett-Hone & Johnson, 2022; Pascale et al., 2024).

The influence of past experiences and the mental and physical health outcomes make the health and overall needs of such survivors multiple and complex. Therefore, an interdisciplinary approach is necessary to ensure that victims and survivors are identified, protected, and provided access to and receive case-sensitive and person-centered care.

Implications for Future Nursing Practice

The implications for human trafficking on future nursing practice include:

• Need for the integration of case-sensitive and trauma-informed care in related nursing practice policies
• Collaboration with intersectional players in identifying and caring for human trafficking victims and survivors
• Globalized standards for survivor care practices in nursing
• Integration of mental health practitioner programs in the nursing curriculum
• Support programs for mental health practitioners handling human trafficking survivors
• Provision of nurse-led social, economic, and mental health support programs at community levels to address factors increasing vulnerabilities

Conclusion

Human trafficking is a major global public health issue with significant physical and psychological health impacts. It requires coordinated and collaborative efforts from local, national, regional, and global players including healthcare professionals, policymakers, law enforcement agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations and individuals to prevent and provide supportive care to victims and survivors. There is a need for case-sensitive and survivor-centered policies and organizational structures to ensure survivors receive the best-needed care. Nurses, therefore, have a critical role to play in identifying and providing care to survivors and advocating for policies that push for support to survivors and vulnerable populations at the local and global levels.

References

Cockbain, E., & Bowers, K. (2019). Human trafficking for sex, labour and domestic servitude: how do key trafficking types compare and what are their predictors? Crime, Law and Social Change, 72(1), 9–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/S10611-019-09836-7/

Corbett-Hone, M., & Johnson, N. L. (2022). Psychosocial Correlates of Mental Health Work With Human Trafficking Survivors: Risk and Resilience. Psychological Services, 19. https://doi.org/10.1037/ser0000615

Goździak, E. M. (2021). Drug Mules, Foot Guides, or Victims of Child Trafficking? Human Trafficking as a New (In)Security Threat, 93–111. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62873-4_6

Holland, K. (2020). Trading Life: Organ Trafficking, Illicit Networks, and Exploitation. New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, 53. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/nyuilp53&id=725&div=&collection=

Hopper, E. K., & Kinnish, K. (2024). The psychological impacts of labor and sex trafficking. In L. Dryjanska, E. K. Hopper, & H. Stoklosa (Eds.), Psychological perspectives on human trafficking: Theory, research, prevention, and intervention (pp. 177–198). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000379-009

International Council of Nurses. (n.d.). Global Health. Retrieved February 10, 2025, from https://www.icn.ch/what-we-do/global-health

Lazzarino, R., Wright, N., & Jordan, M. (2024). Mental Healthcare for Survivors of Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking: A Single Point-in-Time, Internet-Based Scoping Study of Third Sector Provision. Journal of Human Trafficking, 10(3), 479–496. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322705.2021.2024043

Pascale, R. I., Tzani, C., Ioannou, M., Williams, T. J. V., & Hunt, D. (2024). Trafficking trauma: a review on the psychological effects of human trafficking. Mental Health and Social Inclusion, 28(2), 144–161. https://doi.org/10.1108/MHSI-03-2023-0026/FULL/XML

Tiller, J., & Reynolds, S. (2020). Human Trafficking in the Emergency Department: Improving Our Response to a Vulnerable Population. Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 21(3), 549. https://doi.org/10.5811/WESTJEM.2020.1.41690

Tolstikov-Mast, Y., & Aghajanian, C. (2023). Intersectional Approach to Combatting Human Trafficking: Applying an Interdisciplinary Global Leader-Follower Collaboration Paradigm. Handbook of Global Leadership and Followership, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75831-8_38-1

Wood, L. C. N. (2020). Child modern slavery, trafficking and health: a practical review of factors contributing to children’s vulnerability and the potential impacts of severe exploitation on health. BMJ Paediatrics Open, 4(1), e000327. https://doi.org/10.1136/BMJPO-2018-000327

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For this assignment, you will write a position paper in which you will choose and support a healthcare policy issue. You should approach this assignment from the perspective of your specialty track (Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program).

You will use the International Council of Nurses (ICN) and World Health Organization (WHO) websites to guide you on planetary healthcare policies related to the topic of:

• Newborn Health
• Chemical Safety
• Human Trafficking (Client’s Choice)
• Oral Health
  

  Roles of Health Policy and Organizational Structure in Quality Improvement within Health Care Environments

Your paper must include the following topics:

• • Introduction to healthcare policy as found at the ICN or WHO website
• • Describe your position on the planetary health topic chosen aligned to your specialty track – Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program
• • Explain the nurse’s social responsibility to three different stakeholders
• • Identify organizations that have a vest interested in the topic
• • Determine the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to planetary healthcare issue
• • Develop three implications the chosen healthcare policy holds for future nursing practice on a planetary scale
• • Conclusion that leaves stakeholders with key takeaways

Word count is 1000 words excluding title and reference pages. You must support your work with scholarly, peer-reviewed articles