CAPHRI, Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Department of Epidemiology, Boston University, Boston, USA.
J Public Health (Oxf). 2019 Mar 1;41(1):18-26. doi: 10.1093/pubmed/fdy018.
To summarize current evidence on the impacts of child labor on physical and mental health.
We searched PubMed and ScienceDirect for studies that included participants aged 18 years or less, conducted in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and reported quantitative data. Two independent reviewers conducted data extraction and assessment of study quality.
A total of 25 studies were identified, the majority of which were cross-sectional. Child labor was found to be associated with a number of adverse health outcomes, including but not limited to poor growth, malnutrition, higher incidence of infectious and system-specific diseases, behavioral and emotional disorders, and decreased coping efficacy. Quality of included studies was rated as fair to good.
Child labor remains a major public health concern in LMICs, being associated with adverse physical and mental health outcomes. Current efforts against child labor need to be revisited, at least in LMICs. Further studies following a longitudinal design, and using common methods to assess the health impact of child labor in different country contexts would inform policy making.
总结童工对身心健康影响的现有证据。
我们在 PubMed 和 ScienceDirect 上检索了纳入年龄在 18 岁或以下、在中低收入国家（LMICs）开展并报告定量数据的研究。两名独立的审查员进行了数据提取和研究质量评估。
共确定了 25 项研究，其中大多数为横断面研究。童工与许多不良健康结果有关，包括但不限于生长不良、营养不良、传染病和系统特异性疾病发生率较高、行为和情绪障碍以及应对能力下降。纳入研究的质量被评为中等至良好。
童工仍然是 LMICs 的一个主要公共卫生问题，与不良身心健康结果有关。目前针对童工的努力需要重新审视，至少在 LMICs 是这样。进一步采用纵向设计并使用通用方法来评估童工对不同国家背景下的健康影响的研究将为决策提供信息。
