The effect of epidemics on pregnant women and newborns has often been neglected, so what do we know about the effects of COVID-19 in pregnancy and newborns?
As vaccines and other treatments are developed, should pregnant women also be included in clinical trials?
In low- and middle-income countries, disruption of essential maternity and newborn services may erode many of the gains made in maternal and child health over the past two decades.
In the era of Covid-19, the imperative to manage our finite healthcare resources has become greater than ever. RCH became a Choosing Wisely Champion Hospital in 2019 and is committed to providing the safest, high-quality, high-value care for our patients. Through Choosing Wisely, the RCH is part of a worldwide campaign challenging clinicians to think differently about the way we provide care, and to challenge the status quo when what we might normally do is no longer adding value to patient outcomes.
The exit strategy for COVID-19 is a vaccine. To stop this pandemic we may need to vaccinate a significant proportion of the entire global population of 7 billion people. Where are we up to with vaccine development? Who gets vaccinated? How to communicate the benefits of a novel, fast tracked vaccine when misinformation is already spreading.
COVID-19 has resulted in a flurry of high-stakes decision-making, at a public health level and an individual patient level, with significant impacts on how children are cared for, and how staff work. Many of these decisions have ethical dimensions.
COVID-19 is almost always a mild disease in children. Adults are much more likely to become very unwell or die than children. Why is this so?
Data from around the world consistently shows that COVID-19 is essentially a mild disease in children. However, the indirect effects of COVID-19 may have a more profound effect than the direct effects of the infection.
We will hear from 3 speakers on the global and clinical aspects, and the broader social, education and wellbeing impact of COVID-19 on children.
Social media holds considerable potential for health promotion activities, as it addresses some of the barriers in traditional methods of health communication by increasing accessibility, interaction and engagement with the community. Now in its fourth year, the RCH National Child Health Poll has evolved to increasingly use novel and innovative strategies to engage parents and carers via RCH digital channels.
For the last quarter of a century the Centre for Community Child Health has been working with families, communities and government to improve outcomes of all children by focusing on how to provide great care everywhere. This has included clinical services through to place-based service innovation across health and education.
GenV’s vision is to help solve complex issues affecting today’s children and adults through an entire Australian state becoming a single platform that enhances research speed, capacity and translation. Led from the Melbourne Children’s Campus, the GenV Cohort will be open to the families of all 170,000 Victorian newborns over 2021-2. At its foundation are consent; existing geospatial, clinical and administrative data; biosamples; GenV-specific data; and melding observational and intervention design
Widening health inequities, emerging disease threats, and shortfalls in financing for health are challenging the gains made in global health over the past 20 years. Many countries face a ‘triple transition’: Epidemiologically – from infectious to chronic diseases; Financially – from donor to domestic financing of health, and Structurally – as health systems reorganise to achieve universal health coverage. Dr Stephanie Williams will provide an overview of Australia’s global health contribution with practical examples of how the aid program is adapting to these changes.
