Skip to content

Reports and Findings

Effects of Dietary Fat and Protein on Glucoregulatory Hormones in Adolescents and Young Adults With Type 1 Diabetes

Dietary fat and protein impact postprandial hyperglycemia in people with type 1 diabetes, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Glucoregulatory hormones are also known to modulate gastric emptying and may contribute to this effect.

Acceptability of OP/Na swabbing for SARS-CoV-2: a prospective observational cohort surveillance study in Western Australian schools

When the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, Governments responded with lockdown and isolation measures to combat viral spread, including the closure of many schools. More than a year later, widespread screening for SARS-CoV-2 is critical to allow schools and other institutions to remain open.

Informing Resource Allocation for Investment in Early Childhood: A Review of the International Peer-Reviewed Evidence

Early childhood investment decisions represent critical policy frameworks that ideally reflect a strong evidence base. This review seeks to assess early childhood intervention priorities based on return on investment without limitation by health, education or social science sector.

Eye Gaze in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of Neural Evidence for the Eye Avoidance Hypothesis

Reduced eye contact early in life may play a role in the developmental pathways that culminate in a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. However, there are contradictory theories regarding the neural mechanisms involved. According to the amygdala theory of autism, reduced eye contact results from a hypoactive amygdala that fails to flag eyes as salient. However, the eye avoidance hypothesis proposes the opposite-that amygdala hyperactivity causes eye avoidance. This review evaluated studies that measured the relationship between eye gaze and activity in the 'social brain' when viewing facial stimuli.

Status epilepticus following vaccination in children aged ≤24 months: A five-year retrospective observational study

Status epilepticus is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. While vaccine-proximate status epilepticus (VP-SE) has rarely been associated with cases of Dravet syndrome, it is not known whether VP-SE differs clinically from non-vaccine proximate status epilepticus (NVP-SE).

Magic Hats and Teddy Bear picnics: Language and visuospatial lateralisation tasks for children

The behavioural outcomes associated with atypical cerebral lateralization during the early stages of cognitive development is an interesting research venture. However, there are few tasks for assessing lateralization in young children. The current study describes the Magic Hat task and the Teddy Bear Picnic task, which were designed to measure the lateralization of language and visuospatial attention, respectively, in children as young as three years old.

Parental preconception BMI trajectories from childhood to adolescence and asthma in the future offspring

Recent evidence suggests that parental exposures before conception can increase the risk of asthma in offspring. We investigated the association between parents' preconception body mass index (BMI) trajectories from childhood to adolescence and subsequent risk of asthma in their offspring.

The Mental Health Implications of Domestic Violence During COVID-19

Citation: Newnham EA, Chen Y, Gibbs L, Dzidic PL, Guragain B, Balsari S, et al. The Mental Health Implications of Domestic Violence During COVID-19. International Journal of Public Health. 2022;66. Keywords: Mental Health; COVID-19; domestic

Women with type 1 diabetes exhibit a progressive increase in gut Saccharomyces cerevisiae in pregnancy associated with evidence of gut inflammation

Studies of the gut microbiome have focused on its bacterial composition. We aimed to characterize the gut fungal microbiome (mycobiome) across pregnancy in women with and without type 1 diabetes.

Child protection involvement of children of mothers with intellectual disability

Children born to parents with intellectual disability (ID) have been shown as disproportionally represented in child protection services however with limited population-based research.

Potential role for immune-related genes in autism spectrum disorders: Evidence from genome-wide association meta-analysis of autistic traits

Autism spectrum disorders are complex, with a strong genetic basis. Genetic research in autism spectrum disorders is limited by the fact that these disorders are largely heterogeneous so that patients are variable in their clinical presentations. To address this limitation, we investigated the genetics of individual dimensions of the autism spectrum disorder phenotypes, or autistic-like traits. These autistic-like traits are continuous variations in autistic behaviours that occur in the general population.

Systematic In Vitro Evaluation of a Library of Approved and Pharmacologically Active Compounds for the Identification of Novel Candidate Drugs for KMT2A-Rearranged Leukemia

Patients whose leukemias harbor a rearrangement of the Mixed Lineage Leukemia (MLL/KMT2A) gene have a poor prognosis, especially when the disease strikes in infants. The poor clinical outcome linked to this aggressive disease and the detrimental treatment side-effects, particularly in children, warrant the urgent development of more effective and cancer-selective therapeutics.

Association of prenatal alcohol exposure with offspring DNA methylation in mammals: a systematic review of the evidence

Prenatal alcohol exposure is associated with a range of adverse offspring neurodevelopmental outcomes. Several studies suggest that PAE modifies DNA methylation in offspring cells and tissues, providing evidence for a potential mechanistic link to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.

COVID-19 and Behavioral Sciences

Citation: Jackson T, Steed L, Pedruzzi R, Beyene K, Chan AHY. Editorial: COVID-19 and Behavioral Sciences. Front Public Health. 2022;9. Keywords: Behavioral sciences; COVID-19; health protection; healthcare; psychology; public health; risk behavior

Efficacy of the adjuvanted subunit protein COVID-19 vaccine, SCB-2019: a phase 2 and 3 multicentre, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial

A range of safe and effective vaccines against SARS CoV 2 are needed to address the COVID 19 pandemic. We aimed to assess the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine SCB-2019.

Researching the researchers: psychological distress and psychosocial stressors according to career stage in mental health researchers

Although there are many benefits associated with working in academia, this career path often involves structural and organisational stressors that can be detrimental to wellbeing and increase susceptibility to psychological distress and mental ill health. This exploratory study examines experiences of work-related psychosocial stressors, psychological distress, and mental health diagnoses among mental health researchers.

Childhood Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Presentation, management and long-term outcomes in an Australian cohort

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a serious autoimmune disease often resulting in major end-organ damage and increased mortality. Currently, no data exists focussing on the presentation, long-term management and progression of SLE in the Australian paediatric population.

The development and pilot of the university student embeddedness (USE) scale for student retention within universities: validation with an Australian student sample

A significant number of university students are leaving their institutions before completing their degrees. The present research project applied embeddedness theory, from organizational research, to understand student retention in a tertiary student population, and develop a quantitative instrument that measured university student embeddedness.

Strengths and challenging behaviors in children and adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome: Two sides to the coin

Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is a rare genetic disorder associated with emotional/behavioral disturbances. These difficulties are well documented in the literature, but the positive attributes of these individuals are not described.