Journal article
Breaking down the barriers: A qualitative study to understand child oral health in refugee and migrant communities in Australia
E Riggs, L Gibbs, N Kilpatrick, M Gussy, C Van Gemert, S Ali, E Waters
Ethnicity and Health | Published : 2015
Abstract
Objective. Australia is an increasingly multicultural nation. Never before has the dental workforce been exposed to such language, cultural, religious and ethnic diversity. There is evidence that refugee and migrant children experience significantly poorer oral health than the nonmigrant population. However, little is known about the oral health knowledge, practices and beliefs of parents with young children from refugee and migrant backgrounds. The aim of this study was to identify the sociocultural influences on child oral health in these communities. Design. Participatory and qualitative research methods were utilised. Partnerships were established with community agencies representing mig..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We are thankful to all of the women for sharing their 'Teeth Tales' or stories about teeth with us. We are grateful to our cultural partners in particular Amal El-Khoury and her staff from Arabic Welfare, and Leila Alloush and Ninawa Younan from the Victorian Arabic Social Services and later in the study Iqbal Gondal from the Pakistan Association of Australia, for their participation, guidance and enthusiasm throughout this research. This research was funded by the Telstra Foundation Community Development Fund. Elisha Riggs was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) postgraduate scholarship to complete this research. Elisha Riggs, Elizabeth Waters and Lisa Gibbs also acknowledge support from the Jack Brockhoff Foundation. At the time of the study, Caroline van Gemert was located at MCHSs and Saher Ali at The University of Melbourne. Elisha Riggs was supported by the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute at the time of preparing this manuscript which is supported by the Victorian Government's Operational Infrastructure Support Program.