ArticleSociology of health & illness2016
'They won't change it back in their heads that we're trash': the intersection of sex work-related stigma and evolving policing strategies.
Article in Sociology of health & illness, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Systematic review of sexual violence against sex workers: implications for mental and sexual health.BMC public health · 2026Pooled it
- Sex Worker Health Outcomes in High-Income Countries of Varied Regulatory Environments: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- Associations between sex work laws and sex workers' health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of quantitative and qualitative studies.PLoS medicine · 2018Pooled it
- "I Know So Many Women That Have the Same Story as Mine": Exploring How the Increase of Benzodiazepines in the Unregulated Drug Supply Shapes Experiences of Gender-Based Violence Among Women and Gender Minorities in Vancouver, BC.Contemporary drug problems · 2026Article
- Gendered Vice Complaints: 911 Calls Reporting Sex Work in Chicago Neighborhoods, 2017-2020.Feminist criminology · 2026Article
- Using the Candidacy Framework to Explore Access to NHS Healthcare for Street Sex Workers in Sheffield: An Ethnography and Art-Based Research Project.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- THE GENDER SEGREGATION OF PRECARIOUS WORK CONTEXTS AMONG PEOPLE WHO USE DRUGS.International journal of mental health and addiction · 2026Article
- Difficulty accessing contraceptives in a 2010-2022 prospective cohort of sex workers in Vancouver, Canada: intersectional influence of im/migration status and racialization.Reproductive health · 2025Article
- "They look you up and down like you are nothing": A qualitative exploration of sex workers' health needs and interactions with UK healthcare services.International journal of nursing studies advances · 2025Article
- Everyday discrimination and barriers to primary care, mental health, and substance use services: Findings from a community-based cohort of sex workers in Vancouver, Canada (2015-2024).PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Association between sex work occupational stigma and inconsistent condom use: findings from a community-based cohort of women sex workers in Vancouver, Canada (2014-2022).Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2024Article
- IMPACTS OF SEX WORK CRIMINALIZATION AND CENSORSHIP FOR INDOOR WORKERS: EXPLORING HOW BARRIERS TO ONLINE ADVERTISING SHAPE OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY.Sexuality research & social policy : journal of NSRC : SR & SP · 2024Article
- Comparing Stigma and HIV Outcomes Between Transgender and Cisgender Women Sex Workers Living with HIV in the Dominican Republic.Transgender health · 2024Article
- AN EVALUATION OF INDOOR SEX WORKERS' PSYCHOSOCIAL OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY IN METRO VANCOUVER, CANADA.Occupational health science · 2024Article
- Article
- "I would do anything but that": Attitudes towards sex work among rural people who use drugs.The International journal on drug policy · 2023Article
- Interrogating perceived relevance and feasibility of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis: A novel model of PrEP acceptability among cisgender women who inject drugs.SSM. Qualitative research in health · 2023Article
- An Evaluation of Indoor Sex Workers' Sexual Health Access in Metro Vancouver: Applying an Occupational Health & Safety Lens in the Context of Criminalization.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Article
- The Effect of Systemic Racism and Homophobia on Police Enforcement and Sexual and Emotional Violence among Sex Workers in East London: Findings from a Cohort Study.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
In Vancouver, Canada, there has been a continuous shift in the policing of sex work away from arresting sex workers, which led to the implementation of a policing strategy that explicitly prioritised the safety of sex workers and continued to target sex workers' clients. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 cisgender and five transgender women street-based sex workers about their working conditions. Data were analysed thematically and by drawing on concepts of structural stigma and vulnerability. Our results indicated that despite police rhetoric of prioritising the safety of sex workers, participants were denied their citizenship rights for police protection by virtue of their 'risky' occupation and were thus responsiblised for sex work related violence. Our findings further suggest that sex workers' interactions with neighbourhood residents were predominantly shaped by a discourse of sex workers as a 'risky' presence in the urban landscape and police took swift action in removing sex workers in the case of complaints. This study highlights that intersecting regimes of stigmatisation and criminalisation continued to undermine sex workers citizenship rights to police protection and legal recourse and perpetuated labour conditions that render sex workers at increased risk for violence and poor health.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.