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Debbie Susan Palmer Prescott BSc BND PhD MBBS BMedSci PhD FRACP Head, Nutrition in Early Life Honorary Research Fellow debbie.palmer@uwa.edu.au
Group A β-haemolytic Streptococcus (GAS), a Gram-positive bacterium, causes skin, mucosal and systemic infections. Repeated GAS infections can lead to autoimmune diseases acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia have the highest rates of ARF and RHD in the world.
Our skin, the body’s largest organ, protects us and maintains overall health. Untreated recurring skin infections like impetigo and scabies severely impact children. The Kids is at the forefront of combatting skin infections, particularly within remote Aboriginal communities experiencing some of the world’s highest rates.
In late 2022, six-year-old Megan Hutton was living the dream of many kids her age as she celebrated being named runner-up champion athlete at her school sports carnival.
The Institute has become one of the world’s leading Strep A hubs, with multiple teams working in the Institute’s END RHD Program, headed by Associate Professor Asha Bowen, working to understand how Strep A works and find better ways to prevent and control the diseases it causes.
Aboriginal children and families contend with higher rates of preventable infectious diseases that can be attributed to their immediate living environment. The environments in which children spend most of their time are their homes and schools. We aimed to understand the opportunities in the school setting to support student skin health and wellbeing through environmental health activities, how these activities were completed, and the barriers to their implementation.
The prevalence of impetigo and pharyngitis - which are both superficial group A streptococcus (GAS) infections that precede acute rheumatic fever - is poorly defined. Guidelines recommend the early diagnosis of both infections to prevent ARF; however, screening to enable the concurrent detection of these infections in high-risk populations has rarely been performed.
Sepsis, for children and their parents, is a life-altering illness with far-reaching psychosocial and physical impacts. We aimed to explore the needs of such patients and their parents after hospital admission for sepsis to inform the development of a Western Australian postsepsis care service.
Integrating First Nations knowledge systems and Western research methodologies recognizes the strength, experience, and insight of First Nations peoples in addressing health issues in their communities. In research, this includes projects being led by First Nations Elders and peoples, including First Nations researchers in the team, and collecting data in ways that reflect First Nations ways of knowing, being, and doing.
More than 3,000 skin checks have been undertaken as part of a large clinical trial in WA’s Kimberley region aimed at halving the burden of skin sores in school-aged Aboriginal children.