Promoting Child and Carer Wellbeing and Placement Stability in Kinship Care. Kinship care is the fastest growing out-of-home care placement in Australia, yet least supported. This project aims to implement and evaluate an attachment and trauma-based program for kinship carers, explore its suitability for cultural adaptation for Indigenous families and co-design practical resources to promote program sustainability and trauma-informed practice. This project is Australia’s first randomised trial o ....Promoting Child and Carer Wellbeing and Placement Stability in Kinship Care. Kinship care is the fastest growing out-of-home care placement in Australia, yet least supported. This project aims to implement and evaluate an attachment and trauma-based program for kinship carers, explore its suitability for cultural adaptation for Indigenous families and co-design practical resources to promote program sustainability and trauma-informed practice. This project is Australia’s first randomised trial of a tailored program for kinship carers and expects to generate vital knowledge on evidence-based support. Via implementing an innovative program for kinship carers in statutory child protection, this project should build capacity for research-based practice and benefit family wellbeing and placement outcomes in kinship care.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170100078
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Strengthening parent-child relationships to promote child adjustment. This project aims to provide new insight into how biological and foster parents can support their children during periods of heightened vulnerability when they transition to high school or a new foster care placement. It aims to address the shortage of relationally-focused prevention strategies tailored to both biological and foster parents’ needs and delivered at critical transitions in children’s lives. Outcomes are expected ....Strengthening parent-child relationships to promote child adjustment. This project aims to provide new insight into how biological and foster parents can support their children during periods of heightened vulnerability when they transition to high school or a new foster care placement. It aims to address the shortage of relationally-focused prevention strategies tailored to both biological and foster parents’ needs and delivered at critical transitions in children’s lives. Outcomes are expected to shed light on the effects of attachment quality and to advance evidence-based psychological practice in enhancing child adjustment.Read moreRead less
Uncovering The Basis Of Inflammatory And Immunodeficiency Diseases
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$15,718,075.00
Summary
A world-class team from 3 institutions, spanning disciplines of clinical and experimental immunology, therapeutics, signalling and genetics, will identify how immune and inflammatory responses are controlled in both health and disease. The major outcomes of this work will be the generation of new knowledge, concepts and approaches to diagnose, prevent and treat the major human health problems of autoimmune diseases, inflammation, allergy and immunodeficiency.
Perceptual and psychosocial factors associated with individual differences in face identity and face expression processing. What makes one person better or worse than another at recognising faces, or the emotions displayed in those faces? This project examines which aspects of visual perception contribute to these abilities, and their associations with problems such as debilitating social anxiety and young children's anti-social behaviour.
Testosterone Intervention For The Prevention Of Diabetes Mellitus In High Risk Men: A Randomised Trial
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$5,054,654.00
Summary
Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is increasingly common, costly and deadly. Some men at risk of T2DM have low testosterone (T) levels. Our preliminary data suggests that T treatment may prevent the development of T2DM, and improve cardiovascular and sexual function, body composition and bone density, and mood. This remains to be fully tested in a randomized placebo-controlled trial, and this project will do so in a 2-year study of T treatment compared to placebo in men at risk of T2DM participating in a l ....Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is increasingly common, costly and deadly. Some men at risk of T2DM have low testosterone (T) levels. Our preliminary data suggests that T treatment may prevent the development of T2DM, and improve cardiovascular and sexual function, body composition and bone density, and mood. This remains to be fully tested in a randomized placebo-controlled trial, and this project will do so in a 2-year study of T treatment compared to placebo in men at risk of T2DM participating in a lifestyle program.Read moreRead less
Preparing Australia For Genomic Medicine: A Proposal By The Australian Genomics Health Alliance
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$25,000,000.00
Summary
The sequencing of the human genome brings the possibility of more accurate identification of the underlying basis of many diseases. This technology has moved so rapidly, however, that clinical access has been limited. In this application, a national alliance of clinicians, researchers, health economists and policymakers will evaluate the case for clinical genomics across inherited disease and cancer, determine how best to deliver this to the patient and train a capable workforce.
Reducing The Greatest Uncertainty In Radiotherapy.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$594,197.00
Summary
The weakest link in radiotherapy is defining treatment volumes (contouring). Lack of accuracy and consistency in clinical trial contouring has been shown to result in reduced patient outcomes. Manual review of contouring is resource intensive, expensive and for advanced treatments unachievable in a timely fashion. We will assess an automated approach to contouring assessment using 4 clinical trial datasets, changing practice for future studies and enabling consistent assessment in the clinic.
The Treatment Of BOoking Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Study: The TOBOGM Study
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,197,280.00
Summary
Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) related pregnancy complications are reduced with treatment from 24-28 weeks pregnant. Many women are diagnosed/treated earlier without evidence of benefit and possible risk of harm. In TOBOGM women under 20 weeks pregnant with mildly raised blood glucose will be allocated by chance to either immediate treatment, or awaiting a repeat diabetes test at 24-28 weeks pregnant to decide treatment. Harmful and beneficial effects on mother and baby will be compared.
Personalised Learning for Per-pixel Prediction Tasks in Image Analysis. AI-assisted image segmentation & synthesis are very challenging and usually require pixel-level labelling (per-pixel prediction) that is costly to obtain. The small amount of labels makes it difficult to train an “optimal” unified model for varied data as conventional methods did. This project aims to develop a new paradigm “personalised learning” to tackle this problem, where each image could be dealt with a model tailored ....Personalised Learning for Per-pixel Prediction Tasks in Image Analysis. AI-assisted image segmentation & synthesis are very challenging and usually require pixel-level labelling (per-pixel prediction) that is costly to obtain. The small amount of labels makes it difficult to train an “optimal” unified model for varied data as conventional methods did. This project aims to develop a new paradigm “personalised learning” to tackle this problem, where each image could be dealt with a model tailored to individual characteristics. The success of this project could significantly advance the fundamental research in image analysis. Expected outcomes include new knowledge and algorithms for image analysis, which could benefit fields like biology and archaeology, where labeled images are hard to attain and scarce.Read moreRead less
Patient and nurse outcomes and the cost of nurses' turnover in Australian hospitals. An adequate supply of nurses is fundamental to all of the National Health Priority disease areas where quality care cannot be delivered without an adequate number of motivated nurses. Designing cost-effective methods of retaining nurses requires understanding reasons why they leave the workforce and the impact this has on patient care and system costs. The findings will assist policy makers and workforce planner ....Patient and nurse outcomes and the cost of nurses' turnover in Australian hospitals. An adequate supply of nurses is fundamental to all of the National Health Priority disease areas where quality care cannot be delivered without an adequate number of motivated nurses. Designing cost-effective methods of retaining nurses requires understanding reasons why they leave the workforce and the impact this has on patient care and system costs. The findings will assist policy makers and workforce planners at both local and national levels, to design strategies to effectively recruit and retain nurses as demands for health care and market competition for staff both increase.Read moreRead less