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Research

Research priorities for the primordial prevention of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease by modifying the social determinants of health

The social determinants of health such as access to income, education, housing and healthcare, strongly shape the occurrence of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease at the household, community and national levels. 

Research

The causal impact of mental health on tobacco and alcohol consumption: An instrumental variables approach

The reciprocal relationship between psychiatric and substance use disorders is well-known, yet it remains largely unknown whether mental health morbidity causally leads to addictive behaviours. This paper utilises a fixed effects instrumental variables model, which is identified by time-varying sources of plausibly exogenous variations in mental health, and a nationally representative panel dataset from Australia to present robust evidence on the causal impact of mental distress on cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking behaviours.

Research

Down syndrome or Rett syndrome in the family: Parental reflections on sibling experience

Siblings of children with intellectual disability have unique family experiences, varying by type of disability.

Research

Play Active physical activity policy intervention and implementation support in early childhood education and care: results from a pragmatic cluster randomised trial

Policy interventions to increase physical activity in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services are effective in increasing physical activity among young children. However, a large proportion of ECEC services do not have nor implement a physical activity policy.

Research

Reliability of the Commonly Used and Newly-Developed Autism Measures

The aim of the present study was to compare scale and conditional reliability derived from item response theory analyses among the most commonly used, as well as several newly developed, observation, interview, and parent-report autism instruments.

Research

Clinical Trials in the Brain Tumour Population: Challenges and Strategies for the Future

This review identifies challenges and barriers to successful development of drugs in neuro-oncology trials at the preclinical, clinical and translational stages that we believe has contributed to poor outcomes for patients over the last 30 years.

Research

Nature Connection: Providing a Pathway from Personal to Planetary Health

The vast and growing challenges for human health and all life on Earth require urgent and deep structural changes to the way in which we live. Broken relationships with nature are at the core of both the modern health crisis and the erosion of planetary health. A declining connection to nature has been implicated in the exploitative attitudes that underpin the degradation of both physical and social environments and almost all aspects of personal physical, mental, and spiritual health.

Research

Maternal diet modulates the infant microbiome and intestinal Flt3L necessary for dendritic cell development and immunity to respiratory infection

Poor maternal diet during pregnancy is a risk factor for severe lower respiratory infections in the offspring, but the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we demonstrate that in mice a maternal low-fiber diet led to enhanced LRI severity in infants because of delayed plasmacytoid dendritic cell recruitment and perturbation of regulatory T cell expansion in the lungs.

Research

Copy number variation in tRNA isodecoder genes impairs mammalian development and balanced translation

The number of tRNA isodecoders has increased dramatically in mammals, but the specific molecular and physiological reasons for this expansion remain elusive. To address this fundamental question we used CRISPR editing to knockout the seven-membered phenylalanine tRNA gene family in mice, both individually and combinatorially.

Research

Surgery for rheumatic heart disease in the Northern Territory, Australia, 1997-2016: what have we gained?

Between 1964 and 1996, the 10-year survival of patients having valve replacement surgery for rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in the Northern Territory, Australia, was 68%. As medical care has evolved since then, this study aimed to determine whether there has been a corresponding improvement in survival.