Counting culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) children in Australian health research: Does it matter how we count?
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Date
2024
Authors
Abdul Rahim, R.
Pilkington, R.
D'Onise, K.
Montgomerie, A.
Lynch, J.
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Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 2024; 48(2):100129-1-100129-7
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Razlyn Abdul Rahim, Rhiannon Pilkington, Katina D'Onise, Alicia Montgomerie, John Lynch
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Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To describe how culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) children are identified and enumerated in routine data collections and in child health research in Australia. METHODS: Descriptive analysis, where different definitions of CALD were applied to the 2021 Australian Census to measure the size of the CALD population of Australian children aged 0 to 17 years. Narrative review of the Australian child health literature to examine how CALD children were defined. RESULTS: Applying various definitions to the 2021 Census, the estimated proportion of CALD children aged 0 to 17 ranged from 6.3% to 43%. The most commonly applied CALD indicators were language background other than English and being born overseas. CONCLUSIONS: There is no consensus on how CALD is defined in Australian child health research. Application of different CALD indicators can generate up to seven-fold differences in estimates of who counts as being a CALD child. IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH: If we are to advance health and well-being equity for CALD children, we need a more consistent approach to understanding which children are counted as CALD.
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© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Public Health Association of Australia. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).