Challenges to young children's swimming lesson participation in New South Wales, Australia.

Background: Child swimming lessons are a key intervention for drowning prevention; however, participation has been severely affected by COVID-19 restrictions and cost-of-living challenges. To encourage re-engagement, the New South Wales government began providing A$100 swimming lesson vouchers. Parent/carers of eligible preschool-aged children were asked to complete a survey during voucher creation. This study aimed to examine pre-existing challenges to lesson participation among families who had not participated in the preceding 12 months.

Methods: Cross-sectional data from parent/carer surveys completed between December 2021 and June 2022 were analysed. Binary logistic models analysed associations between sociodemographic factors and answered affirmatively to one or more challenges to participation from a predefined list.

Results: Of 221 218 vouchers created, 79 553 parent/carers (36%) indicated that their child had not participated in swimming lessons in the last 12 months and responded to the question about participation challenges. Parent/carers of children with disabilities or residing in low socioeconomic areas had higher odds of indicating cost was a challenge while regional/remote families had over five times higher odds of indicating swim school availability difficulties. Families speaking a non-English language at home had over 2.5 times higher odds of thinking that their child was too young for swimming lessons, higher odds of thinking swimming lessons were not important and higher odds of indicating that COVID-19 had challenged participation.

Conclusion: These findings highlight how different population groups experience challenges to participation in swimming lessons. Alleviating costs and increasing lesson availability is important.