Early Vocabulary Development of Australian Indigenous Children: Identifying Strengths

The current study sought to increase our understanding of the factors involved in the early vocabulary development of Australian Indigenous children. Data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children were available for 573 Indigenous children (291 boys) who spoke English ( = 37.0 months, = 5.4 months, at wave 3). Data were also available for 86 children (51 boys) who spoke an Indigenous language ( = 37.1 months, = 6.0 months, at wave 3). As hypothesised, higher levels of parent-child book reading and having more children’s books in the home were associated with better English vocabulary development. Oral storytelling in Indigenous language was a significant predictor of the size of children’s Indigenous vocabular

Childcare use and its role in Indigenous child development: evidence from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children in Australia

This paper investigates patterns of childcare use and their influence on the cognitive development of Indigenous children. The influence of childcare on the cognitive outcomes of Indigenous children is less well understood than for non Indigenous children due to a lack of appropriate data. This paper uses data from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children, a unique panel survey that tracks two cohorts of Indigenous children in Australia. This paper focuses on the younger cohort that has been followed from infancy and includes rich information on their childcare use and cognitive outcomes. We find that, compared to Indigenous children who never participated in childcare, Indigenous children who participated in childcare performed better on a range of cognitive outcomes measured across the preschool years. Using regression and propensity score matching techniques we show that this difference is entirely driven by selection into childcare, with children from more advantaged families being more likely to attend formal childcare than children from less advantaged families. However, results from the matching analysis suggest that relatively disadvantaged children might benefit more from attending childcare, as indicated by the positive potential effects found for those who never attended childcare (i.e. the estimated effects had they participated in childcare)

Co-designing health service evaluation tools that foreground first nation worldviews for better mental health and wellbeing outcomes

It is critical that health service evaluation frameworks include Aboriginal people and their cultural worldviews from design to implementation. During a large participatory action research study, Elders, service leaders and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal researchers co-designed evaluation tools to test the efficacy of a previously co-designed engagement framework. Through a series of co-design workshops, tools were built using innovative collaborative processes that foregrounded Aboriginal worldviews. The workshops resulted in the development of a three-way survey that records the service experiences related to cultural safety from the perspective of Aboriginal clients, their carer/s, and the service staff with whom they work. The surveys centralise the role of relationships in client-service interactions, which strongly reflect their design from an Aboriginal worldview. This paper provides new insights into the reciprocal benefits of engaging community Elders and service leaders to work together to develop new and more meaningful ways of servicing Aboriginal families. Foregrounding relationships in service evaluations reinstates the value of human connection and people-centred engagement in service delivery which are central to rebuilding historically fractured relationships between mainstream services and Aboriginal communities. This benefits not only Aboriginal communities, but also other marginalised populations expanding the remit of mainstream services to be accessed by many.MichaelWright, Aunty Doris Getta, Aunty Oriel Green, Uncle Charles Kickett, Aunty Helen Kickett ... et al

Maternal Attachment Status, Mother-Child Emotion Talk, Emotion Understanding, and Child Conduct Problems

Conduct problems that emerge in childhood often persist into adolescence and are associated with a range of negative outcomes. It is therefore important to identify the factors that predict conduct problems in early childhood. The present study investigated the relations among maternal attachment status, mother-child emotion talk, child emotion understanding, and conduct problems in a sample of 92 (46 males) typically developing children (M age = 61.3 months, SD = 8.3 months). The results support a model in which maternal attachment status predicts the level of appropriate/responsive mother-child emotion talk, which predicts child emotion understanding, which in turn negatively predicts child conduct problems. These findings further underline the developmental role of mother-child emotion talk as well as the importance of involving parents in programs designed to increase children’s emotion understanding and/or decrease the incidence of conduct problems

Trends and predictors of extreme preterm birth: Western Australian population-based cohort study.

BACKGROUND:The preterm birth rate is rising in high-income countries and is associated with increased mortality and morbidity. Although the risks increase with greater prematurity and risk factors have been found to vary with gestational age and labour onset, few studies have focused on the myriad pathways to extreme preterm birth (20-27 weeks' gestation). The current study investigated trends in extreme preterm birth by labour onset type and examined the antecedent risks to further our understanding around the identification of high-risk pregnancies. METHODS:Retrospective cohort study including all singleton extreme preterm births in Western Australia between 1986 and 2010. De-identified data from six core population health datasets were linked and used to ascertain extreme preterm births (excluding medical terminations and birth defects) after spontaneous onset of labour, preterm pre-labour rupture of membranes, and medically indicated labour onset. Trends over time in extreme preterm birth were analysed using linear regression. Multivariable regression techniques were used to assess the relative risks associated with each salient, independent risk factor and to calculate Population Attributable Risks (PARs). RESULTS:The extreme preterm birth rate including medical terminations and birth defects significantly increased over time whereas the extreme preterm birth rate excluding medical terminations and birth defects did not change. After medical terminations and birth defects were excluded, the rate of medically indicated extreme preterm births significantly increased over time whereas the rate of preterm pre-labour rupture of membranes extreme preterm births significantly reduced, and the rate of spontaneous extreme preterm births did not significantly change. In the multivariate analyses, factors associated with placental dysfunction accounted for >10% of the population attributable risk within each labour onset type. CONCLUSIONS:First study to show that the increase in extreme preterm birth in high-income jurisdiction is no longer evident after medical terminations and birth defects are excluded. Interventions that identify and target women at risk of placental dysfunction presents the greatest opportunity to reduce extreme preterm births

Childcare Use and Its Role in Indigenous Child Development: Evidence from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children in Australia

We investigate patterns of childcare use and its influence on the cognitive development of Indigenous children. The influence of childcare on Indigenous children's cognitive outcomes is less well understood than for non-Indigenous children due to a lack of appropriate data. We focus on a cohort of Indigenous children in Australia who have been followed from infancy and for whom rich information on childcare use and cognitive outcomes is observed. Compared to Indigenous children who never participated in childcare, Indigenous children who participated in childcare performed better on several early cognitive outcomes. Using regression and propensity score matching, we show that this difference is driven by selection into childcare, with children from more advantaged families being more likely to attend formal childcare. However, matching analysis results suggest that relatively disadvantaged children might benefit more from attending childcare, as indicated by the positive estimated effects found for those who never attended childcare

Socioethnic disparities in severe maternal morbidity in Western Australia: a statewide retrospective cohort study

Objectives To assess the scale of ethnic inequalities in severe maternal morbidity (SMM) rates and quantify the contribution of maternal characteristics to these disparities.Design Retrospective cohort study.Setting Whole-of-population linked administrative data from 2002 to 2015 in Western Australia.Participants Women with 410 043 birth events (includes all births from the same pregnancy) of 20 weeks’ or more gestation, including terminations for congenital anomalies.Primary and secondary outcome measures Women with SMM were identified based on a composite indicator of SMM using diagnosis and procedure codes developed for use in routinely collected data. Mothers were classified into seven ethnic groups, based on their reported ethnic origin. The associations between maternal ethnic origin and SMM were examined using a log-binomial model, which estimates risk ratios (RRs) and 95% CIs. The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique was employed to partition the disparity in SMM between Aboriginal and Caucasian populations into ‘explained’ and ‘unexplained’ components.Results During the study period, 9378 SMM cases were documented. In the adjusted model, Aboriginal (RR 1.73, 95% CI 1.59 to 1.87), African (RR 1.64, 95% CI 1.43 to 1.89) and ‘other’ ethnicity (RR 1.49, 95% CI 1.37 to 1.63) women were at significantly higher risk of SMM compared with Caucasian women. Teenage and older mothers and socioeconomically disadvantaged women were also at greater risk of SMM. Differences in sociodemographic characteristics explained 33.2% of the disparity in SMM between Aboriginal and Caucasian women.Conclusions There are distinct disparities in SMM by ethnicity in Western Australia, with a greater risk among Aboriginal and African women. While improvements in SES and a reduction in teenage pregnancy can potentially support a sizeable reduction in SMM rate inequalities, future research should investigate other potential pathways and targeted interventions to close the ethnicity disparity

Additional file 2: of The impact of racial discrimination on the health of Australian Indigenous children aged 5–10 years: analysis of national longitudinal data

Effect of imputation on odds ratio estimates and confidence intervals—obesity. (DOCX 26 kb

Profile of severely growth-restricted births undelivered at 40\ua0weeks in Western Australia

Purpose To investigate the proportion of severely growth-restricted singleton births