Racial discrimination is a central social determinant of health in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (hereafter referred to as Aboriginal) populations, and is associated with health inequities within these populations. This study sought to estimate the prevalence of racism in a longitudinal study of Aboriginal children.
This study examined direct and vicarious racism within the Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) dataset, providing descriptive analysis of direct and vicarious forms of racism exposure experienced between the ages of 6 months to 12 years. Reported statistics include overall prevalence, accumulation of exposure and age of first exposure across key sociodemographic factors over time; the study population comprised 1,759 children in total.
One in five (20.4%) study children had direct experience of racial discrimination by age 11 years, with the majority of these children (73.5%) experiencing first exposure to direct racism by age 7, while vicarious racism through the primary carer was experienced by 44.5% of study children and half (50.5%) of children experienced vicarious racism via family members. Children living in areas of high/extreme remoteness, in the most disadvantaged regions and children who spoke an Indigenous language were at increased risk of experiencing direct racism by age 11.
Direct and vicarious racism is commonly experienced by Aboriginal children and exposure often occurs within the first years of life. This study is one of the first studies internationally to characterise the prevalence of both direct and vicarious forms of racism among a cohort of children using longitudinal data.