All Ireland Traveller Health Study
The HBSC study 2006 is an EU linked survey of school-going children in Ireland, coordinated through NUI Galway. Data was collected on 9-year-olds, 10-11-year-olds, 12-14-year-olds and 15-17 year-olds. Collaboration was agreed with Dr Saoirse Nic Gabhann of NUI Galway, and the HBSC team undertook to supply the data needed to make complete comparisons. Data was gathered from the child as first respondent, and reference to this is made in the text of this paper where appropriate. Comparisons were made with the subset of children in SC 5-6 (n=333 9-year-olds, and n=907 12-14-year-olds). The NLSC/GUI study has contributed some of the most recent data on child health indicators for comparison with AITHS. NLSC/GUI is a large, prospective cohort study which to date has gathered baseline data on two subgroups: 9-month old infants and 9-year-old children. For this study, the data relating to the 9-year-olds (n=8,570) were compared with the 9-year-olds in AITHS, with specific comparisons being made with the NLSC/GUI children in SC 5-6, or to those in the lowest quintile of family income. Data were collected both from the parents, and from the children themselves (in the case of the 9-year-olds). Where relevant in this paper, it is clarified whether the data were by child or parent-report. Data tables have kindly been provided by Professor James Williams of the Economic and Social research Institute (ESRI), and other data has been gathered from the NLSC main report (Williams et al., 2009). The Continuous Household Survey is a yearly survey carried out by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). It samples 1% of the NI households, and gathers information on a number of household factors: population, housing, employment, health and education. Data is available by household income and by employment skill set of the household. In this document, where specific comparisons are made between the NI data and the AITHS data, the default comparison is between the AITHS data and the general Continuous Household Survey data. In cases where the comparisons are made with the NI data relating to semi skilled or unskilled workers only (comparable with the CSO SC 5-6 grouping), this is specified.
Analysis Strategy
All publications of the most significant recent population surveys (Kelleher et al., 2003; Morgan et al., 2007; Williams et al., 2009; O’Mahony et al., 2007; INSIGHT ’07 (2008), Nic Gabhann et al., 2007; Kelly et al., 2009; Krieger et al., 2005) were accessed and data were abstracted. To access data specific to either the medical card holders or the SC 5-6 groups of the general population, raw data was also required from a number of studies. Raw data files were accessed for the Lifeways study, INSIGHT ‘07 and the SLAN 2002 and 2007 studies. In the case of the latter 3 studies, the data was received through the ISSDA. Investigators from the HBSC, NLSC/GUI and SLAN 2007 studies kindly made either raw data or studyspecific tables available for comparison, and we acknowledge their assistance. Further data relating to the general population in Northern Ireland were obtained from both the NI Continuous Household Survey (2008-2009) and the 2005 Infant Feeding Survey (Bolling et al., 2007). We specifically refer to the work of Professor Nancy Krieger in Harvard School of Public Health in Boston because she is a world authority on the relative contribution of race, ethnicity and minority community affiliation to
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