Garrett Pamela W, Dickson Hugh G, Whelan Anna Klinken, Whyte Linda
Simpson Centre for Health Services Research, University of New South Wales, 2-4 Speed St Liverpool, BC1871, Sydney, Australia.
Aust New Zealand Health Policy. 2010 Jan 3;7:1. doi: 10.1186/1743-8462-7-1.
No recent Australian studies or literature, provide evidence of the extent of coverage of multicultural health issues in Australian healthcare research. A series of systematic literature reviews in three major Australian healthcare journals were undertaken to discover the level, content, coverage and overall quality of research on multicultural health. Australian healthcare journals selected for the study were The Medical Journal of Australia (MJA), The Australian Health Review (AHR), and The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health (ANZPH). Reviews were undertaken of the last twelve (12) years (1996-August 2008) of journal articles using six standard search terms: 'non-English-speaking', 'ethnic', 'migrant', 'immigrant', 'refugee' and 'multicultural'.
In total there were 4,146 articles published in these journals over the 12-year period. A total of 90 or 2.2% of the total articles were articles primarily based on multicultural issues. A further 62 articles contained a major or a moderate level of consideration of multicultural issues, and 107 had a minor mention.
The quantum and range of multicultural health research and evidence required for equity in policy, services, interventions and implementation is limited and uneven. Most of the original multicultural health research articles focused on newly arrived refugees, asylum seekers, Vietnamese or South East Asian communities. While there is some seminal research in respect of these represented groups, there are other communities and health issues that are essentially invisible or unrepresented in research. The limited coverage and representation of multicultural populations in research studies has implications for evidence-based health and human services policy.
近期没有澳大利亚的研究或文献能提供澳大利亚医疗保健研究中多元文化健康问题覆盖范围的相关证据。我们在澳大利亚三大主要医疗保健期刊上进行了一系列系统的文献综述，以探究多元文化健康研究的水平、内容、覆盖范围及总体质量。本研究选取的澳大利亚医疗保健期刊包括《澳大利亚医学杂志》（MJA）、《澳大利亚健康评论》（AHR）以及《澳大利亚和新西兰公共卫生杂志》（ANZPH）。我们使用六个标准检索词，对这三种期刊过去十二（12）年（1996年8月至2008年）发表的期刊文章进行了综述，这六个检索词分别是：“非英语母语”、“族裔”、“移民”、“侨民”、“难民”和“多元文化”。
在这12年期间，这些期刊共发表了4146篇文章。其中共有90篇（占文章总数的2.2%）主要基于多元文化问题。另有62篇文章对多元文化问题有主要或中等程度的考量，107篇文章有少量提及。
为实现政策、服务、干预措施及实施方面的公平性，所需的多元文化健康研究及证据的数量和范围有限且不均衡。大多数原创的多元文化健康研究文章聚焦于新抵达的难民、寻求庇护者、越南裔或东南亚社区。虽然针对这些代表性群体有一些具有开创性的研究，但在研究中其他社区及健康问题基本处于无形或未被呈现的状态。研究中多元文化人群的有限覆盖和代表性对基于证据的健康及人类服务政策有影响。
