Obesity research
The Prevention of Overweight in Infancy study (POI.NZ)
Rapid weight gain during the first three years of life predicts child and adult obesity, as well as later cardiovascular and other morbidities. Early infant diet, activity and sleep have been consistently linked to excessive weight gain. Since intervention once children have become overweight is difficult, the Prevention of Overweight in Infancy (POI) study is four-arm randomised controlled trial assessing whether extra education and support around sleep, breastfeeding, diet, and physical activity reduces the number of children showing excessive weight gain over the first two years of life. Also, the study seeks to evaluate if the primary prevention strategies could be delivered separately or together as part of normal health care. This trial is being conducted with 802 families. The POI study intervention commenced in 2009 and the follow-up phase is continuing to 2016.
Find out more about the POI study
Kids BMI study
In 2017 Professor Barry Taylor, Dr David Reith, and Dr Gloria Dainty (PhD candidate) began the Kids BMI study.
Children who were identified as having a BMI above the healthy range during their B4 School Checks may have been given information on intervention programmes. The Kids BMI study is aiming to evaluate these programmes to see if people are attending and if so, are they demonstrating improvements in BMI and quality of life.
Letters have been sent to over 800 families. The study has employed 6 Assistant Research Fellows to see the children, who will be located across the South Island.
See more about the Kids BMI study
Targeting Obesity Through Sleep (TOTS) study
Find out more about the TOTS study
Diabetes research
Managing diabetes in a "Flash" study
Find out more about the Managing diabetes in a "Flash" study
SKIDDOO study
Over time, diabetes leads to complications, including problems with the nerves (neuropathy). This includes the nerves that help control heart rate/rhythm and blood pressure. This makes heart attacks more likely to occur.
Complications have their origins soon after diabetes starts in children and adolescents. Rarely, young people with diabetes die suddenly and unexpectedly during sleep. Heart nerve and rhythm problems may contribute to this devastating outcome. Currently the methods used to diagnose heart nerve problems only work once complications are advanced. We also don't know how sleep and low blood sugar influence their risk. This study aims to find ways to detect early signs of complications affecting the heart's nerve supply. and whether sleep itself or changes with blood sugar during sleep make serious heart rhythm abnormalities more likely to occur in young people with diabetes. This could lead to ways to reduce risk from such complications and prevent sudden death.
Find out more about the SKIDDOO study
FLASH-2 study
Type 1 diabetes is one of the most common chronic illnesses of childhood. Frequent blood glucose monitoring via finger pricks is essential for the management of type 1 diabetes but adds considerable treatment burden.
The FLASH-2 study aims to investigate the potential of intermittently scanned continuous glucose monitoring (isCGM) for monitoring type 1 diabetes in young children.
Find out more about the FLASH-2 study
Other obesity research
Obesity research is carried out and supervised by Dr Helen Paterson. The focus of this research is around the knowledge and practices of New Zealand-lead maternity carers and identification of risks factors for excess weight gain in pregnancy.
Key research staff
Sleep research
Professor Barbara Galland heads the Paediatric Sleep Research Group. Her research interests include studying the effects of sleep and breathing disorders in children and adolescents on behaviour, cognition, and academic performance. She also has an interest in the role sleep plays in overweight and obesity, sleep-related disturbances in children with type 1 diabetes, and the biological mechanisms underpinning Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI).
Read more about Professor Galland
Learn more about each of Professor Barbara Galland's current research projects:
- Behaviours across the 24 hour day
- The Preschool Cam Study
- Sleep in Children with Type 1 Diabetes
- Sleep Disordered Breathing and Academic Performance
- Sleep and Obesity: Mechanisms
- Sleep and Sluggish Cognitive Tempo
- Teenage Sleep and Screens
Clinical pharmacology
This research, led by Associate Professor David Reith, is on two main themes: pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics. Both themes are based on extensive collaborations with the School of Pharmacy, the Department of Anaesthesia (University of Otago, Christchurch), and the Department of General Practice (University of Otago, Christchurch). This research frequently involves the joint supervision of graduate and undergraduate students.
Vaccine evaluation
This group is primarily engaged in a trial of immunogenicity of a new attenuated rotavirus vaccine specifically developed for neonatal administration. This trial is sponsored by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne and supported by the Health Research Council of New Zealand.
Parental incarceration
The CHIP Study (Children of Incarcerated Parents) and the Father Apart Study
Parental incarceration is a strong risk factor for multiple adverse outcomes for children through the life course, including antisocial behaviour, criminal offending, mental health problems, school failure, drug abuse and unemployment. It is estimated that at any one time 20,000 children in New Zealand have a parent incarcerated. With numbers of prison inmates set to rise from the current 8,790 to 12,500 in 2018, the number of children affected is certain to increase. These figures are of particular concern in the context of New Zealand figures on child and adolescent mental health problems (both externalising and internalising). This currently amounts to a public health issue affecting up to 17,000 children between the ages of 0 to 19 years.
Family discipline and development
The BREEZE study
As an investigator on a large longitudinal randomised control trial (the POI.nz study), Dr Julie Lawrence has built into the first two years of the study a number of measures of early family development and, in particular, the patterns of family discipline that are practised from six to 24 months in a child's life (it is not an outcome of POI.nz to look at parental discipline). The Breeze study uses this longitudinal data for cohort analyses and goes beyond previous studies, as very few have assessed family discipline further than one-off parental reports. Excellent support is provided to the study by Nicola Liebergreen (Research Assistant).
Disciplinary practices within families can have lifelong effects on children's well-being and are a particular concern in the context of worsening New Zealand figures on child and adolescent mental health problems. This research will enhance our understanding of parenting practices in early childhood and contribute to more sophisticated explanations of the emergence and maintenance of family discipline. This understanding is necessary for effective evidence-based interventions promoting mental health, as well as to guide government policy. It will be a major resource in understanding parental discipline and parenting behaviours — a critically important issue for the mental health of children and adults.
Safe sleep
The Kahungunu Infant Safe Sleep (KISS) Study
The Kahungunu Infant Safe Sleep (KISS) study is funded by the Health Research Council and aims to determine the safety and other benefits, or harm, from providing either a wahakura or bassinet to families. It is mainly based in Māori midwifery services in the Hawke's Bay area. This is a randomised controlled trial of 200 families, and uses infrared cameras in the family home, temperature probes and pulse oximetry to study high risk babies at one month of age, with further follow-up until six months of age. The study has helped develop protocols for high speed data transfer (up to 20 gigabytes per person) using the national KAREN network, as well as developing a collaborative research paradigm with Māori. The study has finished recruiting.
Incontinence research
The Incontinence research group comprises Professor Don Wilson, Professor Peter Herbison, Dr Jean Hay Smith, and Gaye Ellis. The research focus is on aspects of pelvic floor dysfunction, urinary and faecal incontinence, and pelvic organ prolapse. Activity relates to primary research (epidemiology and clinical trials) in these subjects and also secondary research with cochrane reviews.
The group is strong with an international profile; three are editors of the Cochrane Urinary and Faecal Incontinence Review Group. Active collaborations exist with the University of Aberdeen and the University of Birmingham which enables the recruitment of sizable cohorts to perform well-powered randomised controlled trials. For instance, the recent POPPY (Physiotherapy for Prolapse) Trial involved 27 centres, including Dunedin, with other sites primarily in the UK.
Key staff
Other research themes
The department is also involved in a wide range of other significant research projects. These include studies focused on:
- Clinical ethics
- Clinical operative obstetrics (post-operative infection prevention in caesarean delivery and post-partum haemorrhage, and management of the abnormally adherent placenta)
- The evaluation of clinical access priority criteria for assisted reproduction
- The study of nerve injury in women having their first caesarean section
- The clinician's role in the detection of violence and abuse
- Use of the levonorgestrel intrauterine device (Mirena) in adolescents