Exploring Health and Justice Outcomes in Aboriginal Children: A 17-Year Follow-Up Study of the Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey (WAACHS) Cohort Using Data Linkage

Investigators: David Lawrence, Francis Mitrou, Glenn Pearson, Katrina Hopkins, Sarah Johnson, Stephen Zubrick

Western Australia has the highest rates of Aboriginal incarceration in Australia. Furthermore, the number of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care is growing at a rate surpassing that of non-Aboriginal children. As such, there is an outstanding need for scientifically robust information to inform preventive policies and strategies to reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal people in the child protection and justice systems.

The original Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey 2000-2002 was the largest and most comprehensive survey ever undertaken into the health, wellbeing and development of Western Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. The survey was designed to build the knowledge to develop preventative strategies that promote and maintain the healthy development and the social, emotional, academic and vocational wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people.

This project will investigate how the early life environment of Aboriginal children and adolescents has shaped their pathways into and away from the Western Australian child protection and justice systems over the past 16-17 years, and across generations. This includes pathways from birth through education, health, and other human service domains as children mature into adulthood, including the influence of having parents/carers and other household members involved in the health, child protection and justice systems. This will be achieved by linking the epidemiological survey data collected on a large number of Aboriginal children and their families in 2000-2002 to State administrative data sets.