Influence of families on the growth of children in an aboriginal community.

Objective: Some Aboriginal children have poor growth while others grow according to international standards. This study was designed to find whether these differences were related to families.

Methodology: Data were obtained on 13 families at Cherbourg Aboriginal Community in Queensland. There were data on the growth and hospital admissions of children in these families for at least two generations. Data were taken from records of the Infant Health Clinic and Hospital on the Community. A total of 606 children were considered.

Results: The growth of a child during infancy is correlated with the growth of his/her mother in infancy, but not with the growth of the father. We have therefore defined families in the matrilineal line. There were marked and highly significant differences between the growth of children in the 13 families. The families with good growth in one generation were likely to have good growth of children in the next generation.

Conclusions: In spite of the overall improvements in the growth of infants and children at Cherbourg, families tended to maintain their rankings from one generation to the next. It would be cost-efficient to target health advice to those families who have, in the past, had poor growth among their children.