Similarly, children held in institutional care typically come disproportionately from the
most socio-economically disadvantaged strata of society14 and, as such, are likely to suffer
disproportionately from health conditions that are more common among disadvantaged
groups. These health risks may be compounded by the reasons for the child being
in institutional care: for example, where children are in institutional care in relation to
experiences of physical, emotional or sexual abuse, the trauma associated with those
experiences may increase the risk of mental health problems.15 Children who have been
homeless or otherwise suffered neglect prior to entering institutional care may have had
limited access to healthcare including vaccinations, and inadequate nutrition, potentially
increasing the risk of both communicable and non-communicable disease.16
Children deprived of liberty for notionally therapeutic reasons (e.g., in relation to acute
mental illness) by definition suffer from compromised health. However, given the tendency
for health conditions to co-occur (e.g., poor mental health increases the risk of obesity),17 it
is important to consider the overall health status of children deprived of liberty in these
settings, not only the health condition that precipitated their deprivation of liberty.
1.1 The Impact of Deprivation of Liberty on Health
The concentration of ill health in places where children are deprived of liberty underscores
the salience of another important question: what is the impact of deprivation of liberty on
health? In addition to the human rights implications, considered in other chapters of this
Study, there are good reasons to suspect that deprivation of liberty might have an adverse
impact on the health of children. First, deprivation of liberty is an inherently distressing,
potentially traumatic experience and, as such, may have adverse impacts on mental
14 Fred Wulczyn, Robert Gibbons, Lonnie Snowden & Bridgette Lery, ‘Poverty, social disadvantage, and the black/white placement gap’,
Children and Youth Services Review, Vol. 35(1), 2013, pp. 65-74; Richard Barth, Judy Wildfire & Rebecca L. Green, ‘Placement Into Foster
Care and the Interplay of Urbanicity, Child Behavior Problems, and Poverty’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol. 76(3), 2006,
pp. 358-66; Lumos, ‘Children in Institutions: The Global Picture’, 1 January 2017, Available at https://www.wearelumos.org/resources/
children-institutions-global-picture/ (Accessed 1 August 2019).
15 Rosana E. Norman, Munkhtsetseg Byambaa M, Rumna De, Alexander Butchart, James Scott & Theo Vos, ‘The Long-Term Health
Consequences of Child Physical Abuse, Emotional Abuse, and Neglect: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’, PLOS Medicine, Vol.
9(11), 2012, p.e.1001349.
16 Jennifer Edidin, Zoe Ganim, Scott J. Hunter & Niranjan S. Karnik, ‘The Mental and Physical Health of Homeless Youth: A Literature
Review’, Child Psychiatry & Human Development, Vol. 43(3), 2012, pp. 354-375; Angela L. Hudson, Adeline Nyamathi, Barbara Greengold,
Alexandra Slagle, Deborah Koniak-Griffin, Farimaz Khalilifard & Daniel Getzoff, ‘Health-seeking challenges among homeless youth’,
Nursing research, Vol. 59(3), 2010, pp. 212-218.
17 Merrill Singer, Nicola Bulled, Bayla Ostrach & Emily Mendenhall, ‘Syndemics and the biosocial conception of health’, The Lancet. Vol.
389(10072), 2017, pp. 941-950; Floriana S. Luppino, Leonore M. de Wit, Paul F. Bouvy, Theo Stijnen, Pim Cuijpers, Brenda W. J. H. Penninx
& Frans G. Zitman, ‘Overweight, obesity, and depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies’, Archives of
General Psychiatry, Vol. 67(3), 2010, pp. 220-229; Genevieve Gariepy, D. Nitka & N. Schmitz, ‘The association between obesity and anxiety
disorders in the population: a systematic review and meta-analysis’ International Journal Of Obesity, Vol. 34, 2009, pp. 407-419.
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