The Melbourne Children’s LifeCourse Initiative – An exceptional data resource for promoting health and wellbeing over the life span

Synopsis

The Melbourne Children’s Campus is a global leader for longitudinal and life course data. Being one of the few centres worldwide with such extensive longitudinal cohort studies, we are positioned to address an array of questions central to early life health and development and its progression throughout the life span. LifeCourse now includes over 30 distinct clinical and population-based studies spanning conception to adulthood (including two trans-generational studies) and involving over 60,000 participants, with many enriched through collection of biosamples, imaging, and linkage to administrative data. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of the LifeCourse infrastructure, and how researchers are using the platform to build our understanding of health and development over the life course.

Find out more at: https://lifecourse.melbournechildrens.com

 

Speakers

Dr Meredith O’Connor, Program Manager. Meredith is a developmental psychologist who joined LifeCourse in February 2019 as a postdoctoral fellow, before taking on the role of Program Manager in 2020. She leads efforts to build and manage the central infrastructure supporting cohort excellence and facilitating cross-cohort collaborations. She also undertakes original research analysing data from across LifeCourse cohorts, and contributes to the strategy and design of some of Australia’s seminal longitudinal studies, including the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.

Professor Craig Olsson, Research Convenor. Craig led the early development of LifeCourse between 2014-2018 before becoming Co-Convenor in 2019. His holds an NHMRC Investigator Grant and leads one of Australia’s longest running studies examining the developmental origins of mental health and disorder; The Australian Temperament Project Generation 3 Study (est.1983). He also leads the Intergenerational Cohort Consortium which brings together multigenerational cohort studies from around the world and is National Convenor of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) Longitudinal Studies Network.

Professor David Burgner, Research Convenor. Dave joined the LifeCourse team as Co-Convenor in 2019. He is a paediatric infectious diseases clinician scientist. He holds an NHMRC Investigator Grant and is one of the lead researchers on the Barwon Infant Study, Child Health Checkpoint and a number of COVID-19 related projects. He co-leads a number of national and international cross-cohort studies. His focus is on the early life determinants of infection, inflammation, their role in the development of conditions like heart disease and obesity.

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