A Realist Review of Australian Indigenous Parenting and Infant and Toddler Health Promotion Programs

A Realist Review of Australian Indigenous Parenting and Infant and Toddler Health Promotion Programs

 

Background

Aboriginal children within Australia suffer from significantly lower health outcomes than the rest of the child population. There is a multitude of parenting and infant and toddler (0-12 years) health promotion programs throughout Australia in urban, rural and remote settings.

In 2009, an international collaboration between Canada, USA, Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia was initiated to review Indigenous parenting infant and toddler health promotion programs. This presentation will report on the Australian component of the review

Methods

Using the realist methodology both published and unpublished literature was reviewed. Of the unpublished literature extracted, only articles that were rigorously evaluated using quantitative or qualitative methodologies were included.

The studies included in the review were analysed against the realist study protocol. The review described the outcomes of the programs and the barriers and enablers associated with these programs as experienced by different groups.

Results

The peer reviewed published literature search returned 93 Australian articles. Of these, 15 articles were included for review (eight parenting and seven infant and toddler health promotion). The unpublished literature search of Australian articles returned 72 results. Of these four were included (one parenting and three infant and toddler health promotion).

Conclusion

Programs that had community involvement throughout the program were more successful in their uptake and sustainability. These programs often had community members employed in the program delivery and had resources and promotional materials that were culturally relevant.

Recommendations

Programs should be responsive to community needs at a local level

Program design, development and evaluation should have community leadership and involvement

Community capacity to develop, deliver and evaluate programs need to be developed

Rigorous evaluation frameworks need to be incorporated into programs in order to build the evidence on culture based programs