Barriers to Swimming Lessons for Children

Racial and economic segregation in the United States has limited people’s opportunities to learn to swim1,2 and likely contributes to fatal drowning disparities.3,4 Racial and ethnic differences in learning to swim have been documented among adults.4,5 In Chicago in 2020 to 2021, we found differences crossed generations. Over half of Black parents and Hispanic/Latine parents reported no children in their household had ever taken swimming lessons compared with less than one quarter of white parents.5 In this study, we describe prior year swimming lesson participation for Chicago children in 2022, a year impacted by pool closures related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and lifeguard shortages. We also examine barriers to participation and child comfort with 5 swimming skills by child age, gender, and race and ethnicity.Data were collected in October and November 2022 through the Voices of Child Health in Chicago Parent Panel Survey, administered tri-annually in English and Spanish via web and phone to parents from all 77 Chicago neighborhoods with children <18 in their household.6 We asked parents if any of their 3- to 17-year-old children had taken swimming lessons in the past year. Parents who responded “no” could select all that apply from 10 reasons why they had not (drawing on unpublished data from a prior survey),5 with a free choice option. Parents were asked about their youngest child’s comfort with 5 survival swimming skills (Table 1),7 with 4 response options: not able to do this, not comfortable, somewhat comfortable, and very comfortable.We calculated descriptive and χ2 statistics. All analyses were survey-weighted to be representative of Chicago’s population. Recognizing Chicago’s historically segregated community areas and the related distribution of public swimming pools, we compared responses by parent-reported race and ethnicity. Race and ethnicity were grouped as Black non-Hispanic/Latine, Hispanic/Latine, white non-Hispanic/Latine, and other or multiple races, given small samples of caregivers who identified as Asian, Native American/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, and those selecting multiple races. We also compared being “very comfortable” with each of the 5 swimming skills and a composite of all 5 swimming skills by child age group (3–7 years, 8–12 years, 13–17 years), gender, and race and ethnicity.Responses were received from 1140 parents; 1042 parents with children 3 years or older received swimming questions and were included in analysis. Parents were 58.8% female, 31.6% had a high school education or below, and 13.8% had household incomes <100% of the Federal Poverty Level. Child characteristics are presented in Table 1.Nearly three quarters of children had no prior year swimming lessons (73.9%; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 70.5–77.3), with significant racial and ethnic differences: 85.0% (95%CI: 80.0–90.0) among Black parents, 82.5% (95% CI: 77.9–87.1) among Hispanic/Latine parents, and 64.1% (95% CI: 57.9–70.3) among white parents, and 49.2% (95% CI: 35.4–62.9) among other or multiple race parents (P < .001). Reasons for not having swimming lessons, ranked from most to least common in Table 2, showed significant differences by racial and ethnic group for: child already knew how to swim, no place to go, not enough time, Park District pool closure, and parent not comfortable with swimming themselves. Child age group was associated with being very comfortable with each swimming skill and 3.6% (95% CI: 1.8–5.4) of 3 to 7 year olds, 12.9% (95% CI: 8.4–17.4) of 8 to 12 year olds, and 30.7% (95% CI: 21.4–40.1) of 13 to 17 year olds were very comfortable with all 5 skills (P < .001) (Table 2). Child gender was not associated with any swimming skills. Racial and ethnic differences were present for floating, swimming the length of the pool, and swimming with their face in the water.As Chicago families emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, racial and ethnic disparities in swimming lesson participation persisted. Differences relate to pool access and prior swimming experience for children and their parents. Cost was a common barrier across groups. In contrast to prior research,4,5,8 some swimming skills did not differ by race and ethnicity. Interventions to promote aquatic literacy,9 health equity,10 and access to affordable, high quality swimming lessons deserve greater attention as children missed opportunities to learn to swim during the pandemic and as communities faced subsequent lifeguard shortages. Our findings may not be generalizable to communities with different waterscapes.