Does Place Matter? An International Comparison of Early Childhood Development Outcomes between the Metropolitan Areas of Melbourne, Australia and Montreal, Canada
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. The Greater Montreal and the Greater Melbourne Areas
1.2. Governance Structures and Levels of Action for the Early Years
1.3. Importance of International Comparisons of ECD Outcomes
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Overall Design
2.2. Participants
2.3. Measures
2.3.1. Early Development Instrument (EDI)
2.3.2. Covariates
2.3.3. Data Harmonization
2.4. Statistical Analyses
3. Results
3.1. Characteristics of Participants
3.2. Overall Results Comparing MTL and MEL
3.3. Comparisons across Subgroups in MTL and MEL
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Characteristics of Populations | Greater Montreal | Greater Melbourne |
---|---|---|
Total population | 3.93 million | 4.17 million |
Area | 4604 km2 | 9990 km2 |
Population density | 890.2 persons/km2 | 417.3 persons/km2 |
Home Language | 16.5% English 65.2% French 18.3% Other | 70.9% English 29.1% Other |
Immigrant population | 25.1% | 36.7% |
Indigenous population | 0.9% | 0.5% |
Unemployment rate | 7.5% | 5.5% |
Smaller geographical areas | Greater MTL: 82 municipalities City of MTL: 19 districts | Greater MEL: 31 LGA City of MEL: 15 suburbs |
Survey Differences | Montreal (MTL) | Melbourne (MEL) | Data Harmonization |
---|---|---|---|
Questionnaire | - QSCDK 2012 - 104 questions - Identical to the original EDI, translated to French - Translation-backtranslation for each item | - AEDC 2012 - 95 questions - 9 questions removed from the original EDI - 1 minor wording change (e.g., bathroom vs. washroom) | - Scores by domain based on the original questionnaire of each setting - High internal consistency after the changes in the AEDC questionnaire |
Vulnerability cut-offs | - QSCDK 2012 - Not age-based | - AEDC 2009 - Age-based for 4-, 5-, 6-year-old children | - All QSCDK indicators were recalculated based on the AEDC age-based 2009 cut-offs - Sensitivity analyses with different Canadian and Australian cut-offs |
Participation rate | - 75.9% - Weighting process to adjust for population characteristics | - 97.4% - No weighting | - Sensitivity analyses with and without the weighting variable in MTL |
Exclusion criteria | - Students with handicaps, social maladjustments or learning difficulties (SHSMLD), as defined by the Quebec Ministry of Education [60] | - Children with special needs (SN), as defined in the AEDC data dictionary [61] | - Exclusion criteria based on each setting’s categories were kept after in-depth examination of diagnoses included in SHSMLD and SN |
Language | - Home language in 3 categories (French, English, other) | - Home language in 2 categories (English, other) | - 3 categories in MTL - 2 categories in MEL - Risk comparison between the best and worst outcome language categories in MTL |
Area-level deprivation | - Quintiles from the MSDI - Based on Dissemination Area, the smallest statistical area level in Canada - Quebec is the reference population | - Quintiles from the Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD) - Based on the smallest statistical area in Australia - Australia is the reference population | - Quintiles of Area-level disadvantage based on each setting’s own index - For Australia, the quintiles were recalculated according to the Victoria IRSD scores |
Characteristics | Montreal (MTL) | Melbourne (MEL) |
---|---|---|
Participating children (N) | 29,391 | 51,009 |
Sex (%) | ||
Boys | 49.8% | 50.3% |
Girls | 50.2% | 49.7% |
Age in months (mean) | 72.1 | 69.1 |
Age groups (%) <69 months 69 months to <72 months 72 months to <75 months ≥75 months | 23.9% 25.9% 24.1% 26.0% | 46.1% 24.8% 18.9% 10.2% |
Country of birth (%) In home country Outside home country | 90.1% 9.9% | 91.3% 8.7% |
Home language (%) | French 61.4% English 14.9% Other than French/English 23.7% | English 75.3% --- Other than English 24.7% |
Area-level deprivation * (%) ** Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 | 27.0% 21.7% 16.3% 16.1% 19.0% | 23.3% 22.3% 20.0% 17.7% 16.9% |
Proportions and Median Scores | DV1 | DV2 | PHYS | SOC | EMOT | COGN | COMM |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Montreal (MTL) | |||||||
% vulnerable | 26.8% | 13.2% | 7.3% | 9.9% | 11.5% | 13.0% | 8.9% |
(CI) | (26.2–27.3) | (12.8–13.6) | (7.0–7.6) | (9.6–10.3) | (11.2–11.9) | (12.6–13.4) | (8.5–9.2) |
Median scores | 9.6 | 9.0 | 8.1 | 8.8 | 9.4 | ||
(IQR) | --- | --- | (1.2) | (2.1) | (2.0) | (1.5) | (2.5) |
Melbourne (MEL) | |||||||
% vulnerable | 19.2% | 9.2% | 7.4% | 7.9% | 6.9% | 5.8% | 8.0% |
(CI) | (18.8–19.5%) | (8.9–9.4%) | (7.2–7.6%) | (7.7–8.2) | (6.7–7.2) | (5.6–6.0) | (7.8–8.3) |
Median scores (IQR) | --- | --- | 10 (1.3) | 9.4 (1.9) | 8.8 (2.0) | 9.6 (1.2) | 10 (2.5) |
Subgroups of Children | DV1 | DV2 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
MTL | MEL | MTL | MEL | |
Sex | ||||
Girls | 19.3% (18.7–20.0) | 13.4% (13.0–13.9) | 18.3% (17.6–18.9) | 12.6% (12.2–13.0) |
Boys | 34.2% (33.4–35.0) | 24.9% (24.3–25.4) | 8.2% (7.7–8.6) | 5.7% (5.4–6.0) |
RR | 1.77 (1.70–1.85) | 1.85 (1.78–1.92) | 2.24 (2.10–2.40) | 2.20 (2.07–2.33) |
RD | 14.9% (13.8–15.9) | 11.4% (10.8–12.1) | 10.1% (9.3–10.9) | 6.9% (6.4–7.4) |
Home language | ||||
French | 23.5% (22.9–24.2) | --- | 11.1% (10.6–11.6) | --- |
English | 30.5% (29.2–32.0) | 16.3% (16.0–16.7) | 14.8% (13.8–15.9) | 7.6% (7.3–7.9) |
Other | 33.0% (31.8–34.2) | 27.9% (27.1–28.7) | 17.6% (16.6–18.6) | 14.0% (13.4–14.6) |
* RR | 1.40 (1.34–1.46) | 1.71 (1.65–1.77) | 1.59 (1.48–1.70) | 1.85 (1.74–1.95) |
RD | 9.4% (8.1–10.7) | 11.6% (10.7–12.5) | 6.5% (5.4–7.6) | 6.4% (5.8–7.1) |
Country of birth | ||||
Home country | 25.4% (24.9–26.0) | 18.5% (18.1–18.8) | 18.1% (16.6–19.6) | 12.6% (11.6–13.6) |
Outside home country | 33.4% (31.5–35.3) | 26.5% (25.3–27.8) | 12.4% (12.0–12.9) | 8.9% (8.6–9.1) |
RR | 1.31 (1.24–1.39) | 1.44 (1.36–1.51) | 1.45 (1.33–1.59) | 1.42 (1.31–1.55) |
RD | 8.0% (6.0–9.9) | 8.1% (6.7–9.4) | 5.6% (4.0–7.2) | 3.7% (2.7–4.8) |
Area-level deprivation | ||||
** Q1 | 21.2% (20.3–22.2) | 11.9% (11.4–12.5) | 9.4%. (8.7–10.1) | 4.5% (4.2–4.9) |
Q2 | 24.2% (23.1–25.3) | 14.8% (14.2–15.5) | 11.6% (10.8–12.5) | 6.8% (6.3–7.3) |
Q3 | 27.9% (26.6–29.3) | 18.0% (17.3–18.8) | 13.8% (12.8–14.9) | 8.6% (8.0–9.1) |
Q4 | 29.6% (28.2–31.0) | 22.6% (21.8–23.5) | 15.0% (14.0–16.1) | 11.2% (10.6–11.9) |
Q5 | 34.0% (32.8–35.3) | 32.7% (31.7–33.7) | 18.3% (17.3–19.4) | 17.3% (16.5–18.1) |
RR | 1.61 (1.51–1.70) | 2.74 (2.59–2.90) | 1.95 (1.78–2.14) | 3.82 (3.48–4.20) |
RD | 12.8% (11.2–14.4) | 20.7% (19.6–21.9) | 8.9% (7.7–10.2) | 12.8% (11.9–13.7) |
© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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Dea, C.; Gauvin, L.; Fournier, M.; Goldfeld, S. Does Place Matter? An International Comparison of Early Childhood Development Outcomes between the Metropolitan Areas of Melbourne, Australia and Montreal, Canada. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 2915. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16162915
Dea C, Gauvin L, Fournier M, Goldfeld S. Does Place Matter? An International Comparison of Early Childhood Development Outcomes between the Metropolitan Areas of Melbourne, Australia and Montreal, Canada. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2019; 16(16):2915. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16162915
Chicago/Turabian StyleDea, Catherine, Lise Gauvin, Michel Fournier, and Sharon Goldfeld. 2019. "Does Place Matter? An International Comparison of Early Childhood Development Outcomes between the Metropolitan Areas of Melbourne, Australia and Montreal, Canada" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16, no. 16: 2915. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16162915