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Studies of traditional Indigenous compared to 'Western' gut microbiomes are underrepresented, and lacking in young children, limiting knowledge of early-life microbiomes in different cultural contexts. Here we analyze the gut metagenomes of 50 Indigenous Australian infants (median age <one year) living remotely with variable access to Western foods, compared to age- and sex-matched non-Indigenous infants living in urban Australia.

Altered drive to socially engage is a transdiagnostic feature across multiple psychopathologies. Yet, lack of clarity regarding specific processes that constitute social drive, along with insufficient measurement methods, has hindered understanding in this area. This study ascertained the feasibility of approximating difficulties within specific fine-grained social drive processes as proposed by 2 theoretical frameworks: “orienting,” “wanting,” “pursuing,” “liking,” “learning,” and “reticence” within a reward processing framework and “orienting,” “seeking and maintaining,” and “liking” within a social motivation framework.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of mortality and are among the foremost causes of disability globally. CVD burden has continued to increase in most countries since 1990, with trends driven by changing exposures to harmful risk factors, population growth, and population aging.

Talk-based psychotherapy and physical activity are both recognised as effective treatments for child and adolescent mental illness. Despite this, talk therapy and physical activity are rarely integrated-an approach hereafter termed "active counselling (AC)" -in clinical practice for youth mental health. The purpose of this study was to explore parents' perspectives of AC for their child who had been receiving this type of therapy from a provider in Australia. Parental perceptions were also used to identify possible psychological mechanisms underpinning the effects of AC.

Otitis media (OM) is the leading cause of childhood hearing loss but its burden in low-middle-income countries like Papua New Guinea (PNG) is poorly understood. We aimed to determine the proportion of children aged ≤15 years attending clinics in Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province, PNG with OM and associated risk factors.

Consumption of a Mediterranean diet (MD) has been associated with reduced incidence of non-communicable diseases and reduced overall mortality, with epigenomic effects representing plausible mediators. The aim of this pilot study was to explore potential epigenetic associations between DNA methylation markers in blood and adherence to an MD in pregnancy.

Parents and caregivers play a critical role in the care of their child peri-operatively. Our team undertook previous research with parents/carers, which identified Australian parents' top 10 research priorities for paediatric anaesthesia and peri-operative medicine. 

The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA) Guideline: Infant Feeding for Food Allergy Prevention is an update of the 2016 ASCIA guideline. This updated guideline provides recommendations specifically in relation to infant feeding for food allergy prevention. 

Disease spreading models such as the ubiquitous SIS compartmental model and its numerous variants are widely used to understand and predict the behavior of a given epidemic or information diffusion process. A common approach to imbue more realism to the spreading process is to constrain simulations to a network structure, where connected nodes update their disease state based on pairwise interactions along the edges of their local neighborhood. 

Behavioural sleep problems are common in children. The challenges with establishing and maintaining good sleep hygiene may prove challenging to overcome based on environmental issues such as the liberal availability of electronic media from a young age, permissive parenting, difficult family dynamics and limited parental/carer understanding of a child's sleep needs as they progress through childhood and adolescence.