Invisible and stigmatized: A systematic review of mental health and risk factors among sex workers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Sex work is a common phenomenon, but socially invisible and stigmatized. Due to exposure to work-related risks, sex workers (SWs) are vulnerable to developing health problems. However, little attention has been paid to their mental health. The purpose of this systematic review was to synthesize the existing literature on mental health and to explore risk factors related to psychopathology in sex workers. METHODS: A systematic review (CRD42021268990) was conducted on the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and PsycInfo for peer reviewer papers published between 2010 and 2022. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) was used to examine the quality of the studies. Of the 527 studies identified, 30 met the inclusion criteria. RESULTS: Mental health problems were prevalent among sex workers. Depression was the most common mental health problem; however, other psychological problems were also high, including anxiety, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation. Sex workers are exposed to numerous work-related risks, including violence and high-risk sexual behaviors. Despite the high prevalence of mental health problems, SWs often encounter significant barriers to accessing healthcare services. CONCLUSION: These results suggest the need to focus on preventive measures to promote psychological well-being among sex workers.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.029 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.007 | 0.006 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.010 | 0.010 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".