Counting culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) children in Australian health research: Does it matter how we count?

Objective: To describe how culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) children are identified and enumerated in routine data collections and in child health research in Australia.

Methods: Descriptive analysis, where different definitions of CALD were applied to the 2021 Australian Census to measure the size of the CALD population of Australian children aged 0 to 17 years. Narrative review of the Australian child health literature to examine how CALD children were defined.

Results: Applying various definitions to the 2021 Census, the estimated proportion of CALD children aged 0 to 17 ranged from 6.3% to 43%. The most commonly applied CALD indicators were language background other than English and being born overseas.

Conclusions: There is no consensus on how CALD is defined in Australian child health research. Application of different CALD indicators can generate up to seven-fold differences in estimates of who counts as being a CALD child.

Implications For Public Health: If we are to advance health and well-being equity for CALD children, we need a more consistent approach to understanding which children are counted as CALD.