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Australia is the only developed country to consistently undertake a developmental census of its children nationwide. The repeated collection of the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) has provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine the prevalence of developmental vulnerability across Australia's states and territories, the socio-economic distribution of developmental vulnerability across jurisdictions, and how these distributions might have changed over time.

It is unclear who is at risk of being involved in a suicide cluster and whether suicide clusters are influenced by the social transmission of suicidal behaviour, assortative relating, or a combination of both. Suicide clusters involving two or more young people were identified from the free text of electronic police and coroners reports in Australia's National Coronial Information System in a nationwide cross-sectional study.

To investigate the effect of interpregnancy interval (IPI) on preterm birth (PTB) according to whether the previous birth was preterm or term.

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) caused by parasites of the Leishmania donovani complex can be fatal in susceptible individuals. Understanding the interactions between host and pathogen is one way to obtain leads to develop better drugs and for vaccine development. In recent years multiple omics-based approaches have assisted researchers to gain a more global picture of this interaction in leishmaniasis. Here we review results from studies using three omics-based approaches to study VL caused by L. donovani in India.

Rapid blood culture pathogen identification facilitated by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation time-of-flight and GeneXpert has the potential to improve antibiotic prescribing. This study investigates the impact of these rapid diagnostics on the timeliness of effective and optimal antibiotic prescribing in paediatric patients with bacteraemia.

Objective: To assess the demographic, social, and clinical characteristics of young Australians who die by suicide.

DNA methylation has been shown to be associated with adiposity in adulthood. However, whether similar DNA methylation patterns are associated with childhood and adolescent body mass index (BMI) is largely unknown. More insight into this relationship at younger ages may have implications for future prevention of obesity and its related traits. We examined whether DNA methylation in cord blood and whole blood in childhood and adolescence was associated with BMI in the age range from 2 to 18 years using both cross-sectional and longitudinal models.

Group A streptococcal (GAS) pharyngitis has traditionally been considered the sole precursor of acute rheumatic fever (ARF). Evidence from Australia, however, suggests that GAS skin infections may contribute to the pathogenesis of ARF.

To explore the factors influencing the uptake of cochlear implants in adults, determine the impact of each factor, and to conceptualize the journey to implantation from a multistakeholder perspective. Concept mapping was used to integrate input from multiple stakeholders, each with their own experience and expertise.

In both high- and low-income countries, HIV-negative children born to HIV-positive mothers (HIV exposed, uninfected [HEU]) are more susceptible to severe infection than HIV-unexposed, uninfected (HUU) children, with altered innate immunity hypothesized to be a cause. Both the gut microbiome and systemic innate immunity differ across biogeographically distinct settings, and the two are known to influence each other.