Understanding Parental education and health of Pacific families: Background and study protocol: Parental Education and Pacific Health, study protocol

Abstract

Nakiro'anga ite au meitaki o tei '?pi'i ia no te ora'anga pu'apinga no t?tou te Vakevake a Te Moana Nui o Kiva e no'o nei i Aotearoa (Meitaki o te ‘Api'i) is a programme of research examining the benefits of education to health outcomes for Pacific families in Aotearoa using the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) and it is an Health Research Council Pacific post-doctoral project. As a part of Meitaki o te ‘Api'i, the present study plans to investigate the relationship between parental education and child health outcomes in Pacific families.

Using linked health, income, and Census data, the present study will model the influence of parental education levels on child health outcomes adjusted for other key factors. In this methodological paper, we provide details about this project that is in a relatively new data space for Pacific research and we describe our participants.

Most children in the study were born in New Zealand and nearly all could speak English. Pacific children were slightly younger, more likely to be able to speak a Pacific or other languages, and most likely to live in areas of socio-ecenomic deprivation compared to non-Pacific children. Pacific children who identified with solely Pacific and Pacific with other ethnicities. Parents of children with solely Pacific ethnicity, more than a third of whom were born in New Zealand, over 60% spoke a Pacific language and four out of five held christian beliefs. By comparison, parents of children with Pacific with other ethnicities were; younger, New Zealand born, less likely to speak another language and half held christian beliefs. Compared with parents of children from Other ethnicities, parents of Pacific children had lower median incomes, were less likely to own their home and had fewer total years of education.

It is important to note that the overall purpose of this study is not to highlight the differences between Pacific and other non Pacific families, but to look at the relationship between parental education and the health of children.