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WVU Researcher Uses mHealth App to Combat Child Sex Trafficking

The mHealth app, now in prototype, would help educate school nurses and public health workers on how to identify child sex trafficking and offer resources for reporting and helping victims.

Source: ThinkStock

By Eric Wicklund

- A West Virginia University researcher is using mHealth to educate school nurses and public health workers on how to identify child sex trafficking.

Amie Ashcraft, director of research at WVU’s Department of Family Medicine, is developing the SexEx Rural mHealth platform to tackle a growing issue in rural America: children trafficked as a cash source by people struggling with an opioid addiction. The prototype connected health tool, to be made available as a desktop and mobile app, offers training on how to identify child sex trafficking and resources for reporting and supporting victims.

“The sexual exploitation of children can involve stripping, pornography or prostitution,” she said in a story issued by the university. “There’s widespread misunderstanding about what ‘trafficking’ actually is. It occurs when one person sells another for a profit. It often gets miscategorized as child abuse, sexual abuse or kidnapping. Many people think it involves movement across borders and believe it’s something that only happens in bigger cities.”

Ashcraft’s work is an example of how health workers, state agencies and others are using telehealth and mHealth platforms to push on-demand training, education and links to resources in to rural and remote regions where access to care is limited.

The platform also offers some privacy and discretion for both providers and patients dealing with issues like spousal/partner and child abuse, sexually transmitted diseases and care management concerns affected by poverty, religion or other social mores.

Ashcraft received a one-year, $225,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control for the project, and is getting assistance from the West Virginia Human Trafficking task Force, the Randolph-Elkins Health Department, the Cabell-Huntington Health Department and the Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department.

“The good thing about the app is it’s easily scalable and cheap,” she said. “It also can be accessed in rural areas without a reliable internet connection.” 

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