All Ireland Traveller Health Study Our Geels - Department of Health ...

Health Survey Findings
the classification used by the Irish CSO, where SC 5 or 6 means that the present or last occupation of
the person is in either the semi-skilled or non-skilled occupational categories) or medical card users.
It is acknowledged that the Traveller community is not homogeneous, and that as a distinct minority
community it has characteristics that set it apart from the general Irish public in significant respects.
Nonetheless because social inequality is one possible contributory feature to the health status of its
population it is appropriate to control or adjust for that possibility insofar as possible.
Description of the Data Sources Accessed
Lifeways is a cross-generational cohort study of 1,000 Irish families funded by the Health Research
Board, in which data was collected from family members including mothers, fathers, grandparents and
children (O’Mahony et al., 2007). Two subsets of the Lifeways population were used to obtain the data
for this comparison. Firstly, a dataset was created using baseline survey data from all adults in the study
(mothers, fathers and grandparents, n=2,158 persons). Of this adult dataset, 510 persons had a medical
card, and were therefore included in the analyses. For the second dataset, data were taken from the
5-year follow up child examination from Lifeways, affording direct comparison to 5-year-old Traveller
children. These questions focused on the index child, with whom the mother was pregnant at the
Lifeways cohort inception. There were follow up data on 68% of children, of whom 199 had mothers
who had reported having a medical card at baseline. Despite the fact that Lifeways recruitment focused
on pregnant women, subsequent studies have shown that the Lifeways cohort can be used as a
representative sample of the general Irish population (Niedhammer et al., 2009).
INSIGHT ‘07 is a study of consumer satisfaction with health and social care services. Data were collected
by means of a survey of a nationally representative sample of Irish adults identified through the 2002
census, with supplemental sampling of the over 50 age group. The final sample was 3,517 respondents,
of whom 1,282 had medical cards. SLAN 2002 is a population-based survey of Irish adults. These data
have been received through the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA). SLAN 2002 gathered data on
5,992 participants, 1,645 of whom held medical cards. For this analysis, the data relating to persons who
held medical cards were retained. SLAN 2007 is a population based survey of adults aged 18 and over,
living in private accommodation, identified through the GeoDirectory. The SLAN 2007 raw data relating
to medical card holders (n=3,445) has been made available to us through Dr Karen Morgan of RCSI.
Results from SLAN 2007 were also gathered from the published reports, and in this case, comparisons
with the AITHS group were made with published results relating to SC 5 and 6. Of the SLAN studies,
SLAN 2007 comparisons were preferentially included as the most current data, although comparisons
with SLAN 2002 were included if the equivalent data item was not available in SLAN 2007.
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-old, 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-old, and n=907 12-14-year-olds).
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