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Congratulations to three The Kids Research Institute Australia researchers, who have been awarded funding from the Raine Medical Research Foundation.
Delivering tangible and measurable improvements to the health and wellbeing of children is at the centre of a bold new blueprint for child health research in WA
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a significant cause of respiratory infections in young children. Since 2021, RSV has been a notifiable disease in Australia. However, current surveillance systems focus on hospitalised RSV, with limited surveillance at a community level through primary care clinics. This approach only captures RSV requiring hospitalisation. Less severe illnesses, while not captured, may have significant social and economic impacts including the associated cost of care and absenteeism. The aim of this study is to establish an understanding of the broader burden of RSV in young children in a community setting.
Globally, rates of children with physical and mental health problems are increasing. Health issues in early childhood often persist into adulthood, highlighting the need to ensure children are supported to flourish from the start of life.
Unhealthy outdoor food advertising is strongly linked to poor diet, highlighting the need for policies. Western Australian (WA) local governments can restrict advertising on their owned infrastructure through their Public Health Plans, but limited policy action has occurred.
Rheumatic heart disease, a major cause of morbidity and mortality in low- and middle-income countries, results from acute rheumatic fever (ARF), for which no diagnostic test currently exists. The ARF Diagnosis Collaborative Network (ARC Network) was established to address this gap by recruiting a rigorously phenotyped, globally representative cohort of children and adolescents with ARF and controls to support biomarker discovery.
Although uncommon, invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) results in death in 5%-10% of cases in healthy children and adolescents. This study aimed to examine demographics, clinical presentation, treatment and outcomes of Australian children hospitalized with IMD during the introduction of the meningococcal vaccine program, overall and by serogroup/disease severity.
The social determinants of health, as described by the World Health Organisation (WHO), are 'the non-medical factors' that influence health outcomes. They are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life. According to the WHO, social determinants of health account for between 30-55% of health outcomes, and children can be particularly vulnerable to their impacts.
Children are disproportionately affected by the negative health effects of climate change. We did a systematic review to synthesise the available evidence on tested interventions to improve child health in response to the impacts of climate change.
Water chlorination is essential for controlling harmful microbes in drinking water; however, the antimicrobial effects of chlorine-based disinfectants present in tap water may influence early-life gut microbial ecology.