Technical Report - Donegal Traveller's Project

All Ireland Traveller Health StudyFor the Adult Health Status and Service Utilisation questionnaires, the reported responses represent thedirect responses combined with the proxy responses, for those variables that were asked in the proxyquestionnaires also.The main results of the census and survey are given in the body of this report in tabular form. Sociodemographicdata are presented first. Though the main survey was of Traveller ‘families’ this data isbased on the individuals documented within the Traveller families and gives a picture of the entireTraveller population. All demographic factors are analysed separately by sex and age group and by ROIand NI. Please note that the percentages add across the table with the total sample size (n) for thatcategory/sub-category presented in the last column. For the demographic tables the n representsindividuals.The remainder of the tables presented in this report is based on the Traveller families surveyed, or onthe sub-groups surveyed for the Child or Adult sections. Again, tables are broken down by age, sexand by ROI and NI. The questions are presented in the running order of the questionnaire and arenumbered based on the question numbers in the actual questionnaire. The titles of the tables reflectthe actual question asked of the survey population, edited as needed for clarity of reading. A full (paper)version of the questionnaire is given in the Appendix to the 3 AITHS Technical Reports. Because of thelarge number of variables obtained, and the sample size, multiple statistical comparisons with testing ofhypotheses were not considered appropriate. However, some relevant cross-tabulations are providedand a comparison of some key variables is included.Analysis Strategy for the Contextualisation of theAITHS Census and Health Survey DataA comparison section follows the presentation of the census and health survey main report, wherecomparable population-level data is abstracted and presented in tandem with the AITHS findings, inorder to provide context and richness to the understanding of the Traveller condition.Choice of Comparative DataThe items used for data collection in the AITHS were derived primarily from a number of existingsurvey instruments that had been used for data collection in Ireland. The results of these surveyswere therefore used as appropriate comparators for the AITHS results. Items were derived from suchsurvey instruments as used by the SLAN (Survey of Lifestyle, Attitudes and Nutrition) 2002 and 2007surveys (Kelleher et al., 2002; Morgan et al., 2008), the National Longitudinal Study of Childhood/Growing up in Ireland study (NLSC/GUI) (Williams et al., 2009), the Lifeways Cross-Generational CohortStudy (O’Mahony et al., 2007) (hereafter also known as Lifeways), the Health Behaviour in SchoolagedChildren (HBSC) study (Nic Gabhann et al., 2006), Krieger et al. (2005), KIDSCREEN (KIDSCREEN/DISABKIDS questionnaire, 2010), INSIGHT ‘07 (2007), and the Continuous Household Survey in NI(2008-2009). The aim of this section is to consider the key variables noted in the AITHS and comparethe Traveller social, economic and health position with that of the general Irish population, andwhere possible, specifically with the position of the Irish population of social class (SC) 5 or 6 (from64