The Seeding Success study: protocol for a population-based cohort study using linked administrative data
Australian Aboriginal children are more likely than non-Aboriginal children to have markers of developmental vulnerability at school entry, tracking through to poor school outcomes and disadvantage in later life. The Seeding Success study will identify key drivers of positive early childhood development in Aboriginal children, and supportive features of local communities and early childhood service provision. The study will include children who started, or were eligible to start, their first year of full-time school in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, in 2009 and 2012, identified by linking Australian Early Development Census data to perinatal and birth registration datasets. Early childhood health and development trajectories will be constructed via linkage to administrative datasets relating to birth outcomes, congenital conditions, hospital admissions, emergency department presentations, use of general practitioner and mental health services, contact with child protection and out-of-home care services, receipt of income assistance and fact of death. Multilevel modelling techniques will be used to quantify the contributions of individual- and area-level factors to variation in early childhood development outcomes in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children. We will use the linked data to assess the impact of two current NSW government programs that aim to address early childhood disadvantage. These analyses will use propensity matching methods and interrupted time series analysis to identify comparison areas and groups and to compare outcomes between areas and groups. The findings will be relevant to those working in the health, early childhood, community services and education sectors.