The impact of social determinants of health of Australian Indigenous women on access and engagement in maternal child health services.

Data from Indigenous mothers residing in the Glenelg Shire with at least one child aged birth to 5 years were collected through face-to-face, in-depth semi-structured discussion ('yarning') at the Dhauwurd Wurrung Elderly and Community Health Service and the Winda-Mara Aboriginal Corporation Aboriginal and Community Controlled Health Organizations (ACCHO's) in December 2021, co-facilitated by key staff from the ACCHO's. To ensure cultural safety and an Indigenous lens to the research, consultation with traditional owners residing in the Glenelg Shire was sourced to assist with the development of the research guide and to develop interview questions. A panel of experts was then consulted to clarify the relevance and clarity of each question/discussion prompt on the indicative interview schedule and establish face validity. The panel of experts comprised of the research project team, an experienced Maternal and Child Health (MCH) nurse researcher and key representatives from the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organization (VACCHO) and the ACCHO sites. A small number of the target group, independent of the research, piloted the questions. Any valid suggestions from the expert panel and pilot testing were incorporated into the interview schedule design and clarifications were made to the questions/prompts where appropriate. Following full approval of the research, the Chief Executive Officers (CEO's) of the two ACCHO's were provided with an overview of the project and timeframes, and an Indigenous employee within each ACCHO was appointed by the CEO as a 'site coordinator' to act as the chief point of contact with the project team and assist with recruitment of discussion participants. Women who met the inclusion criteria were then invited to participate in the research. To ensure procedural and interpretative rigour, and to gain a deeper, comprehensive insight and understanding of First Nation women's access and engagement in MCH Services, the ACCHO Site Coordinators, key staff from VACCHO and an Indigenous academic consultant with research experience interviewing Indigenous mothers in 'the first 1000 days' of their child's life, also participated in the analysis of the data.