Do Australian children carry out recommended preventive child health behaviours? Insights from an online parent survey.

Abstract

To investigate (i) the proportion of Australian children who do not adhere to preventive child health behaviours, (ii) clustering of child health behaviours, (iii) the proportion of parents who are concerned about not meeting recommendations and (iv) parents' access to and interest in information on ways to establish healthy habits in their child. A cross-sectional online survey of 477 Australian parents of 0-4-year-old children assessed the degree to which children meet key child health recommendations (diet, physical activity, oral health, sleep, pedestrian/vehicle safety, screen use, sun safety, personal hygiene, medical care), examined clustering of health behaviours and identified parents' greatest concerns. A significant proportion of children do not meet recommendations for many preventive child health behaviours. More than half of the parents report infrequent toothbrushing and dentist check-ups, less than the recommended vegetable consumption, excessive consumption of treats, not wearing safety equipment, excessive screen time and screen time during meals, child inactivity, insufficient sleep, not covering coughs and sneezes, insufficient hand and nail hygiene and inadequate sun protection. No clustering of life-style risk behaviours was found. Areas of greatest concern to parents are vegetable consumption, toothbrushing, covering coughs and sneezes, screen time and wearing sunglasses. While the majority of Australian parents have accessed child health recommendations, relatively few consistently implement health-protective practices with their children. Parents are concerned about this and interested in receiving information. Future research should investigate barriers to following guidelines and how parents can best be supported in establishing healthy habits.