Policy on Health of Street Children: Challenges and Solutions

The phenomenon of street children is a biopsychological and social issue that not only is damaging to children but also endangers community health. Along with health programs and policies of our country, recognizing the challenges for designing optimal programs and providing appropriate services are necessary. This paper discusses the main issues and challenges of street children’s health and, also, health policy and guidelines for this population.
This was a review study in which literature was gathered from databases such as Pubmed, Medline, Cochran library, Emro, WHO, Iranmedex, SID and Google scholar using keywords including: street children, health, challenges, policy, health policy making. The search in these databases resulted in 84 sources of which 47 were selected as the most appropriate ones in terms of coverage. All data published during 2002-2015 were included.
The key concepts in this study are as follows: “street children and their health issue”, “health policy”, “solutions for improving street children conditions”, “health policy approaches to street children’s health”, “strategies of World Health Organization”,and “social support programs for street children”. Precise identification of the relevant information makes planning more effective in health policy making for this group of children.
The phenomenon of street children is a growing problem with a worldwide strand that has become a major concern in many countries including Iran. To reform health programs and policy for street children, the results of the present study can be helpful to identify measures needed for making better use of research findings.