title: Assessing the cultural competence of oral health research conducted with migrant children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Traditional assessment of research quality addresses aspects of scientific rigor, however, ensuring barriers to participation by people of different cultural backgrounds are addressed requires cultural competence. The aim of this research was to assess the cultural competence of oral health research conducted with migrant children.
  
  
  METHODS
  A protocol was developed with explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria. Electronic databases were searched from 1995 to 2009. Each study was assessed for cultural competence using the assessment criteria and a template developed as a proof-of-concept approach.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 2059 articles identified, 58 met inclusion criteria (n = 48 studies). There were four (8.3%) cohort studies, five (10.4%) intervention studies, 37 (77.1%) quantitative cross-sectional studies, and two (4.2%) were qualitative studies. Overall, migrant children had worse oral health outcomes in all studies compared with their host-country counterparts. All studies rated poorly in the cultural competence assessment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Appropriate inclusion of all potentially vulnerable groups in research will result in better estimates and understandings of oral health, and more reliable recommendations for prevention and management.
authors.affiliation: Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Program, McCaughey VicHealth Centre for Community Wellbeing, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic., Australia; Healthy Mothers Healthy Families Research Group, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne, Vic., Australia.
authors.forename: Elisha
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Riggs
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gussy
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gibbs
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: van Gemert
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Waters
authors.forename: Naomi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Priest
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Watt
authors.forename: Andre M N
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Renzaho
authors.forename: Nicky
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kilpatrick
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D054521:Cultural Competency; D019140:Dental Care for Children; D018865:Dental Research / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D009909:Oral Health / Q000208:ethnology*; D014171:Transients and Migrants
keywords: cultural competence; dental caries; migrant; oral health; systematic review