Tag: child health
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Supporting families to raise healthy kids: The INFANT program
Rachel Laws, Penny Love, Megan Adam, and Kylie Hesketh Anyone who has endured a high chair standoff over food, or battled nap time with an exhausted child, will know that raising a baby is not for the faint hearted. The first 1,000 days, from conception to two years, are critical.…
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Pathway to universal access to essential oral healthcare
Tan Nguyen and Sneha Sethi Successive Australian governments have struggled to address the funding gap to include oral health under Medicare. The burden of oral diseases in Australia amounts to 120,799 disability-adjusted life years for the 2023 population’s lifetime – which equates to $10.8 trillion in productivity losses. Among the…
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Forcing kids behind bars creates more crime, not less
Malcolm Baalman Across Australia, at any time, around 400 children aged 10 to 13 are incarcerated for criminal actions. Over 50% of these are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids. Public health takes a lifelong perspective on the health of populations and the impact that all people have on those…
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Baby and toddler foods are not what they seem
Jane Martin and Andrea Schmidtke Picture this. You head into the supermarket to stock up on food for the week and a trip away at the weekend. Convenient food for your two-year-old is what you’re after — something healthy, but also something you know they’ll eat and that can be…
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Watching Bluey or walking the dog? How grandparents entertain the kids
PHAA Communications It’s a scenario that many families can relate to – childcare is expensive, hard to secure or simply too inflexible and so the grandparents become regular babysitters. With many families now having both parents working, Australia’s grandparents have become our biggest providers of informal care. Which raises the…
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Australia urgently needs better preconception health support
Amie Steel, Edwina Dorney, Jacqueline Boyle Most people know that smoking and drinking alcohol during pregnancy is not ideal. But very few know just how important it is for both parents to maintain healthy behaviours, not only during pregnancy, but in the weeks or months beforehand. The health of both…
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Next gen of researchers in early childhood health pave the way for cross-discipline collaboration
EPOCH-Connect In early childhood health promotion, collaboration is essential to break down disciplinary silos and create systemic change. Bringing together researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and families allows for innovative research and the translation of findings into tangible, real-world impact. Collaborative and impactful research requires skills beyond those taught in research training…
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Comprehensive vaping reforms needed to protect kids
Dr Matthew Tuson and Angela Gazey “Brick and mortar” vape stores have proliferated across Australia in recent years. One only needs to search ‘vape stores’ on Google Maps to see their ubiquitous presence. Our recent research, published in The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health (ANZJPH), identified almost…
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Industry’s bogus ad scheme fails to protect children from alcohol exposure
Chanelle Wilson, Cancer Council Western Australia When children from Mount Hawthorn Primary School left for the day back in June, the first thing they saw was a large glass of wine and the tagline “when it rains, we pour” pictured on a bus stop advertisement. The ad was for ‘Cabin…
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Government regulation urgently needed to protect young children’s diets from food marketing influence
Dr Alexandra Chung, Monash University Babies and toddlers can’t yet write a grocery shopping list, but they are considered fair game when it comes to food marketing. Our new research published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health reveals how babies and toddlers are being targeted with front-of-pack…
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Federal Election Call for Action: #ThreeTransportPriorities
Matthew ‘Tepi’ Mclaughlin, Stephen Hodge, Peter Bourke, Peter McCue, on behalf of the Australasian Society for Physical Activity (ASPA) and We Ride Australia. The 2022 Federal Election document was presented to the Co-Chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Cycling, a group that unites MPs and Senators with an interest in…
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Yes, words can harm young trans people. Here’s what we can do to help
Cristyn Davies, University of Sydney; Alessandra Chinsen, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; Ken Pang, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; Kerry H. Robinson, Western Sydney University, and Rachel Skinner, University of Sydney All children and adolescents have the right to live free from discrimination. However, the public debate last week around the proposed…
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When is the right time for children to learn to swim?
Amy Peden, UNSW Each year in Australia, an average of 23 children under five die from unintentional drowning, usually due to factors such as a lack of adult supervision, unrestricted access to water and not having the skills to stay safe in water. Teaching children to swim is crucial to…
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Every Moment Matters: The campaign to raise awareness of the risks of drinking alcohol while pregnant, planning a pregnancy, or breastfeeding and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).
Sarah Ward – Foundation for Alcohol Research & Education (FARE) It’s the largest national campaign about alcohol, pregnancy, and breastfeeding that Australia has seen. Every Moment Matters emphasises the message that ‘the moment you start trying, is the moment to stop drinking alcohol’. I have been lucky enough to…
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On World AIDS Day, peak body says elimination can be achieved in Australia by 2025
Jeremy Lasek – PHAA Today, 1 December, is World AIDS Day. After 40 years of trying to control the spread of HIV in Australia, the peak national organisation for Australia’s community HIV response, says 100% elimination should now be our goal, and is achievable. Every year 900 Australians are diagnosed…
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Raising the Age crucial for health and wellbeing of children and our future: ACT Attorney-General
Jeremy Lasek & Malcolm Baalman – PHAA The timing was impeccable. Just as the ACT’s Attorney-General, Shane Rattenbury MLA, was preparing to address the PHAA’s Justice Health Conference last week, the ACT Government released the results of public consultation which showed overwhelming community support for a proposal to raise the…
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Better ways to prevent obesity and tooth decay in early childhood
Dr Narendar Manohar (Western Sydney University), Professor Andrew Hayen (University of Technology Sydney), Associate Professor Amit Arora (Western Sydney University) At school entry age, around 40% of Australian children already have tooth decay and around a quarter are overweight or obese. Both these conditions have a significant negative impact on…