Public Health

Working together to optimise children’s mental health: The Campus Mental Health Strategy

Mental Health is an issue of growing concern across the community. This has been amplified through the COVID-19 pandemic. Child mental health is also an ongoing priority for the Melbourne Children’s Campus (MCC) and its three partners. The RCH treats many vulnerable patient groups (e.g., children with chronic illness, neurodevelopmental disorders, psychosocial challenges) with elevated risk of psychological and mental health difficulties. This extends across our inpatient and outpatient services and into the community. Despite this, mental health services can be fragmented and difficult to access. 

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Improving services, prevention and outcomes for tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is a major cause of child morbidity and mortality globally. Young children are at particular risk of severe and disseminated disease following exposure to a person with tuberculosis. Public health and clinical services, including in Victoria, focus on early detection and treatment of both disease and infection. There have been recent developments that potentially strengthen and decentralise services for tuberculosis.

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Knowledge translation and research impact: How can we increase our capacity for improving children’s health?

Too often research evidence fails to inform practice or policy, and opportunities to improve children’s health and wellbeing are lost. The Melbourne Children’s Knowledge Translation and Research Impact Project, funded by the RCH Foundation, seeks to better understand campus KT and impact needs, and has developed and piloted strategies to advance knowledge translation, implementation and research impact.

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The Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity (CCOPMM) in the time of the pandemic

The Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity (CCOPMM) monitors the causes and factors involved in all child deaths throughout Victoria, and provides recommendations to Government, health care professionals and the community.  In recent years the Council has identified the social and economic gradient in risk of child deaths, which includes virtually all causes, from accidental trauma, drowning, SIDS, infections and chronic illnesses.  The Council has long recommended improvements in the systems for provision of child welfare and support to families who are vulnerable, especially families of children with chronic illness, and these needs are magnified in the COVID-19 pandemic era.

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COVID-19 Kids: Have you checked the children? Understanding the unintended consequences of COVID-19

Fortunately, COVID-19 in children is generally mild. However, the necessary public health mitigation measures to control community transmission have resulted in many unintended consequences for families and children.
How are Victorian children tracking during the pandemic? What can families do to help their children through these uncertain times? And how are young people with disabilities faring? 

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How can a 10 year old be sent to prison in Australia?

Currently in Australia, children as young as 10 years old can be arrested, held in police cells, taken before a magistrate and incarcerated in prison-like settings.  Most children who are incarcerated are never convicted of a crime. 

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From scarlet fever to polio: epidemics and pandemics in the history of the Royal Children’s Hospital

In the early decades of European settlement, Australia was free of some infectious diseases such as measles, scarlet fever and diphtheria which could not survive the long voyage to Australia. When these infections did arrive, as shipping times reduced, resistance was low and severe epidemics occurred, especially among children in the crowded slums of the cities, and among indigenous populations who were previously free of these infections.

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COVID-19: Spotlight on Schools and Kids in Melbourne

It is well established that kids get less sick from COVID-19 than adults. However, what do we know about the extent infected children contribute to spreading the virus?
With some areas of Melbourne approaching their third week of lockdown and widespread community transmission, how do we make decisions about when it’s safe to reopen schools and what can we do to prevent kids from transmitting the virus? At Melbourne’s largest children’s hospital, we will hear what the commonest conditions are that are causing kids to get sick during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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