Can Swimming Pools Improve Indigenous Children's Hearing?
CRCAH Project No. IKCD337
Administering organisation:
Flinders University
Project Leaders:
Linnett Sanchez
Contact details:
Linnett.Sanchez@flinders.edu.au
Team Members:
Karen Sparrow and Simon Carney of Flinders University; senior staff of the Anangu Education Service of the SA Department of Education and Children’s Services (DECS)
Program Manager:
Arwen Nikolof
Chronic Conditions Program
Funding Source:
Department of Health and Ageing (Commonwealth)
Partners Involved:
- Dept. of Health and Ageing
- Anangu Education Services (DECS)
- Flinders University
- 12 remote Aboriginal communities in SA's APY and Tjarutja Lands
- CRC for Aboriginal Health
This project is endorsed as an in-kind project of the CRCAH.
Project summary:
Middle ear infections (otitis media) have serious short and long-term consequences for Indigenous people living in remote communities. They commonly cause significant hearing loss, which affects children’s education and social development, and, in turn, has serious implications for vocational opportunities and mental health.
In 2008, the Federal Department of Health and Ageing funded Associate Professor Linnett Sanchez and her research team to investigate the effect of swimming in saltwater chlorinated pools on the prevalence of middle ear infections among remote Aboriginal communities in northern and western South Australia. The project will extend a small-scale study in remote Western Australian communities that found swimming in chlorinated pools produced a major decline in the prevalence of perforated ear drums in the children in those communities. (1)
The new research project builds on a program of hearing assessment for school-age children in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yunkunytjatjara Lands (APY) and Tjarutja lands that has been under way for six years. The program was funded by DECS and run by staff, postgraduate and undergraduate students from Flinders University’s Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology and Flinders medical students.
The hearing assessments have found (see Flinders Journal weblink below) that 74 per cent of children tested in the APY Lands fail a hearing screening test, presenting “horrific levels of prevalence of conductive hearing loss” consistent with findings about ear disease and hearing loss in many other remote communities. The longitudinal data from this earlier work now provide an excellent baseline to evaluate the effect of swimming pools on children’s ear health.
Summary of Projected Outcomes:
The collection of whole-of-population data in the APY Lands over the past six years has identified the worst affected children as eligible for disability support. A direct consequence of this has been a fourfold increase in the number of Anangu children meeting the hearing impairment criteria for disability support. As a result DECS has now provided appropriate infrastructure, such as the installation of sound-field amplification systems in classrooms throughout the APY lands.
It is anticipated that the new research project will ascertain whether the presence of a chlorinated salt-water swimming pool in the remote communities being studied has a direct bearing on the levels of hearing loss prevalent among children in each of these communities.
Summary of Project Implementation:
The research team will compare communities with and without swimming pools, both prior to and after the swimming season, to determine whether pool use really does improve ear health and consequently hearing. Researchers plan on making two annual trips to each community over a three-year period.
Timeline
The project started in 2009 and will run for three years through to the end of 2011.
Related Publications/Links:
Healthcare Planning and Evaluation. 5 July 2009, Evaluation of the Sustainability and Benefits of Swimming Pools in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands) in South Australia. Final Report - de-identified, published online by the Department of Health and Ageing in March 2010,
Lehmann, D., Tennant, M., Silva, D., McAullay, D., Lanigan, F., Coates, H. & Stanley, F. 2003, ‘Benefits of swimming pools in two remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia: intervention study’, British Medical Journal, vol. 327, no. 7412, pp 415-19.
'Can swimming pools improve Indigenous hearing?’, School of Medicine, Flinders University, 15 October 2008.
‘Evidence-based initiatives - Impact of swimming pools’, The Anangu Lands Paper Tracker.
Australian Indigenous EarInfoNet
(1) Lehmann, D., Tennant, M., Silva, D., McAullay, D., Lanigan, F., Coates, H. & Stanley, F. 2003, ‘Benefits of swimming pools in two remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia: intervention study’, British Medical Journal, vol. 327, no. 7412, pp 415-19.