Health Care Providers’ Perceptions of Human Trafficking on the U.S. Frontier: Contextualizing Future Steps

Author: Mahapatra, Neely & Havig, Kirsten

Abstract: This study explored health care providers’ perceptions of human trafficking in the frontier U.S. state of Wyoming. There were 235 professionals who responded to open-ended questions aimed at illuminating barriers and supports for enhancing the capacity of health care providers to identify and respond to human trafficking while situating that response in the unique rural and frontier settings of the Western United States. Six themes emerged: education and training needs; identification tools; community- and system-level supports; unique sociocultural contexts; challenges of the frontier setting; and collaboration with the two Tribal nations that share a reservation. The findings shed light, through the lens of provider perceptions, on community attitudes toward human trafficking and victims/survivors; the impact of the state’s frontier status; and potential pathways forward for health care providers. This study also provides important contextual considerations pertaining to opinions on the role of the state. Such knowledge is critical to policymaking that promotes human rights broadly and UN Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 16: respectively, the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls and the promotion to just and inclusive societies. The findings of this study highlight the importance of confronting persistent victim-blaming as well as the marginalization of Indigenous people in the state if future efforts are to be empowering and inclusive for all.

Keywords: human trafficking, health care providers, perceptions, victim-blaming, rural and frontier areas