Artisanal mining and the determinants of health: a global literature review

Globally, an estimated 13 million people are directly involved in artisanal and small-scale mining activities and an additional 80 to 100 million people depend directly or indirectly on the associated activities. The objective of this paper is to explore how ASM is intertwined with the determinants of health as outlined by the Public Health Agency of Canada, and to address related policy issues. A systematic review of the literature was conducted through Google Scholar. A trend that emerged throughout the literature was that ASM has significant impact on many aspects of health and well- being of the miners, communities and countries. However, because these activities are often illegal or unmonitored, mitigation of adverse impacts is illegal. Increasingly scholars argue that these activities need to be approached as a development problem, where the central goals should be to devise and support appropriate and sustainable means of artisanal mining and poverty alleviation.