ABSTRACT

Assessing vulnerability is an international priority area across law enforcement and public health (LEPH). Most contacts with frontline law enforcement professions now relate to ‘vulnerability’; frontline health responders are experiencing a similar increase in these calls. To the authors’ best knowledge there are no published, peer-reviewed tools which specifically focus on assessing vulnerability, and which are specifically designed to be applicable across the LEPH frontline. This systematic review synthesised 33 eligible LEPH journal articles, retaining 18 articles after quality appraisal to identify assessment guidelines, tools, and approaches used relevant to either law enforcement and/or public health professions. The review identifies elements of effective practice for the assessment of vulnerability, aligned within four areas: prevention, diversion/triage, specific interventions, and training across LEPH. It also provides evidence that inter-professional/integrated working, shared training, and aligned systems are critical to effective vulnerability assessment. This systematic review reports, for the first time, effective practices in vulnerability assessment as reported in peer-reviewed papers and provides evidence to inform better multi-agency policing and health responses to people who may be vulnerable.

摘要

评估脆弱性是执法和公共卫生 (LEPH) 的国际优先领域。现在与一线执法专业人士的大多数接触都与“脆弱性”有关；一线卫生救援人员的电话也出现了类似的增加。据作者所知，没有专门针对脆弱性评估的已发表的、经过同行评审的工具，这些工具专门设计为适用于 LEPH 前线。该系统评价综合了 33 篇符合条件的 LEPH 期刊文章，在质量评估后保留了 18 篇文章，以确定与执法和/或公共卫生专业相关的评估指南、工具和方法。审查确定了评估脆弱性的有效实践要素，这些要素在四个领域内保持一致：预防、LEPH 的分流/分类、具体干预和培训。它还提供证据表明跨专业/综合工作、共享培训和统一系统对于有效的脆弱性评估至关重要。该系统评价首次报告了同行评议论文中报告的脆弱性评估的有效做法，并提供了证据，为更好地对可能易受伤害的人进行多机构治安和健康应对提供信息。