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Sydney Institute for Women, Children and their Families Research

The Sydney Institute for Women, Children and their Families (the Institute) undertakes, supports and connects research related to the health and social wellbeing of women, children and their families. Some of our research is listed below.

Institute led or supported projects

  • Aboriginal breast feeding practices: Facilitators and barriers 
  • BABY1000
  • Reducing the effects of smoking and vaping on pregnancy and new-born outcomes – exploring the knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of clinicians and women
  • Benefits of analysing brain biomarkers in perinatal care – prospective cohort study
  • Breastfeeding education research
  • Child protection and domestic violence trauma informed practice 
  • CRE for Integrated Care
  • Creating spaces to increase engagement and expectations of dads
  • Data linkage for preterm birth prediction 
  • EASing Oxytocin during labour 
  • Evaluating the Child Health Information Link (CHIL)     
  • Evaluation for Inner West Child Health and Wellbeing Plan
  • Externalising behaviour – a partnership between health and education
  • Geospatial mapping – A state-wide analysis of emergency department presentations in NSW
  • Healthy Beginnings
  • Healthy Homes and Neighbourhoods
  • Heavy menstrual bleeding in women with congenital heart disease 
  • Hospital acquired complications at RPA for obstetric anal sphincter injury 
  • Identifying barriers and enablers faced by emerging, early, to mid-career researchers
  • LifeLab Sydney
  • Low carbohydrate breakfast for gestational diabetes
  • Optimising the capacity of health care practitioners to support child health behaviour in the first 2000 days in families with CALD communities 
  • PreBabe 
  • Predicting spontaneous preterm birth with machine learning techniques
  • Promoting social connectedness in culturally and linguistically diverse women in the perinatal period
  • Rapid infant weight gain 
  • Tidda-links
  • Trial Of Labour After Caesarean (TOLAC) study
  • Web-based healthy beginnings for CALD communities 

Institute student research projects

The Institute runs a student placement program in collaboration with local Universities to connect post graduate students with District clinicians, researchers and academics. An example of the type of projects undertaken is shown below.  

  • Access to speech pathology service for priority populations 
  • How government and public policy messaging can be targeted to encourage disclosures and incident reporting from survivors of sexual assault 
  • Tresillian residential unit early discharge study: Understanding why
  • Scoping review of intersectoral partnership evaluations and the extent to which they consider health equity 
  • Evaluating a place-based health and social care navigation service
  • Associations between density of e-cigarette retailers around residential neighbourhoods, schools and youth-orientated leisure centres or facilities in the community
  • Co-designing and developing an oral health resource for patients with spinal cord injury 
  • Postnatal depression risk under the NSW SAFE START policy: Who is missing out on universal screening in Community Health Services 

Institute supported grants 

  • Equitable Pathways and Integrated Care in Cerebral Palsy (EPIC-IC)
  • Co-creating accessible patient experience measures with people with intellectual disability to improve health care quality and outcomes
  • Health4Life Parents & teens: A co-designed and scalable eHealth intervention to reduce modifiable cancer risk factors among socio-economically disadvantaged adolescents
  • Pre-conception weight loss program to improve maternal and infant outcomes for women with overweight or obesity – a pragmatic randomised controlled trial
  • LifeLab Global Community of Practice

Our Publications

The Institute annually reports on our Affiliate Network’s publications, with close to 400 papers published annually. Below is a snapshot of recent publications from the network.

Bertrand-Protat, S., Chen, J., Jonquoy, A., Frayon, S., Thu Win Tin, S., Ravuvu, A., Caillaud, C., & Galy, O. (2023). Prevalence, causes and contexts of childhood overweight and obesity in the Pacific region: a scoping review. Open research Europe, 3, 52. https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.15361.2
Bin Maideen, M. F., Jay, O., Bongers, C., Nanan, R., & Smallcombe, J. W. (2023). Optimal low-cost cooling strategies for infant strollers during hot weather. Ergonomics, 1-15. doi: 10.1080/00140139.2023.2172212
Branjerdporn, G., Clonan, T., Boddy, J., Gillespie, K., O’Malley, R., & Baird, K. (2023). Australian women’s perspectives of routine enquiry into domestic violence before and after birth. BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 23(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-023-05345-7
Bruce, B. R., Leask, J., De Vries, B. S., & Shepherd, H. L. (2023). Midwives' perspectives of intravenous fluid management and fluid balance documentation in labour: A qualitative reflexive thematic analysis study. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 79(2), 749-761. doi: 10.1111/jan.15518
Carroll, A. J., Appleton, J., & Harris, K. M. (2023). Child sleep problems, maternal sleep and self‐efficacy: Sleep's complicated role in maternal depression. Journal of Sleep Research. 2024 Apr;33(2). doi: 10.1111/jsr.14005
Chan L, Owen KB, Andrews CJ, Bauman A, Brezler L, Ludski K, Mead J, Birkner K, Vatsayan A, Flenady VJ, Gordon A. Evaluating the reach and impact of Still Six Lives: A national stillbirth public awareness campaign in Australia. Women and Birth. 2023 Sep;36(5):446-453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2023.02.006
Cheney K, Black K, Pelosi M, Dorney E. Introduction of the London Measure of Unplanned Pregnancy at the booking visit and the midwives perspective. BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health. 49(2):112-117, 2023 04. doi: 10.1136/bmjsrh-2022-201576 
Dong, V., Montgomery, A., Adily, P., & Eastwood, J. (2023). Antenatal depression risk under the NSW SAFE START Strategic Policy: Who is missing out on universal screening?. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. Doi: 10.1111/jpc.16415
Grech, A. M., Kizirian, N., Lal, R., Zankl, A., Birkner, K., Nasir, R., Muirhead, R., Sau-Harvey, R., Haghighi, M. M., Collins, C., Holmes, A., Skilton, M., Simpson, S., & Gordon, A. (2023). Cohort profile: the BABY1000 pilot prospective longitudinal birth cohort study based in Sydney, Australia. BMJ open, 13(6), e068275. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-068275
Hodge, A., Sutherland, R., Ong, N., Chan, E., Barnett, D., Bennett, B., Boulton, K., Francis, D., Guastella, A., Papanicolaou, A., Tomsic, G., Williamsz, M., & Silove, N. (2023). Telehealth assessment of autism in preschoolers using the TELE-ASD-PEDS: A pilot clinical investigation. International journal of speech-language pathology, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2023.2270187
Hu, N., Gelaw, Y. A., Katz, I., Fernandez, E., Falster, K., Hanly, M., Newton, B. J., Stephensen, J., Hotton, P., Zwi, K., & Lingam, R. (2023). Developmental trajectories of socio-emotional outcomes of children and young people in out-of-home care - Insights from data of Pathways of Care Longitudinal Study (POCLS). Child abuse & neglect, 149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106196
Javid, N., Phipps, H., Homer, C., de Vries, B., Kaufman, J., Danchin, M., & Hyett, J. (2023). Factors influencing uptake of the COVID-19 vaccination among pregnant women in Australia: A cross-sectional survey. Birth (Berkeley, Calif.), 50(4), 877–889. https://doi.org/10.1111/birt.12741
Laws, R. A., Cheng, H., Rossiter, C., Kuswara, K., Markides, B. R., Size, D., Corcoran, P., Ong, K. L., & Denney-Wilson, E. (2023). Perinatal support for breastfeeding using mHealth: A mixed methods feasibility study of the My Baby Now app. Maternal & child nutrition, 19(2), e13482. https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13482
Price, A. M. H., White, N., Burley, J., Zhu, A., Contreras-Suarez, D., Wang, S., Stone, M., Trotter, K., Mrad, M., Caldwell, J., Bishop, R., Chota, S., Bui, L., Sanger, D., Roles, R., Watts, A., Samir, N., Grace, R., Raman, S., Kemp, L., Lingam,  R., Eapen, V, Woolfenden, S. &  Goldfeld, S. (2023). Feasibility of linking universal child and family healthcare and financial counselling: findings from the Australian Healthier Wealthier Families (HWF) mixed-methods study. BMJ open, 13(11), e075651. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-075651
Rumianek, B., Hillman, R., Jeoffreys, N., Ghazanfar, S., Schifter, M., & Ajwani, S. (2023). Prevalence of oral HPV in the adult sample population in Sydney. Australian Dental Journal, 68(1), 19-25. doi: 10.1111/adj.12943
Scott, F., Smet, M. E., Elhindi, J., Mogra, R., Sunderland, L., Ferreira, A., & McLennan, A. (2023). Late first‐trimester ultrasound findings can alter management after high‐risk NIPT result. Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology. https://doi.org/10.1002/uog.26272
Simmons, D., & Sweeting, A. (2023). Defining gestational diabetes: not just about cutoffs. The lancet. Diabetes & endocrinology, 11(5), 303–304. https://doi-org.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/10.1016/S2213-8587(23)000…. 
Uribe, G., Mukumbang, F., Moore, C., Jones, T., Woolfenden, S., Ostojic, K., ... & Huckel Schneider, C. (2023). How can we define social care and what are the levels of true integration in integrated care? A narrative review. Journal of Integrated Care, 31(5), 43-84. DOI 10.1108/JICA-08-2022-0045
Wen, L. M., Xu, H., Phongsavan, P., Rissel, C., Hayes, A., Taki, S., & Baur, L. A. (2023). 12-month effectiveness of telephone and SMS support to mothers with children aged 2 years in reducing children’s BMI: an RCT. International Journal of Obesity, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-023-01311-7
Withanage, N. N., Botfield, J. R., Srinivasan, S., Black, K. I., & Mazza, D. (2022). Effectiveness of preconception interventions in primary care: a systematic review. British Journal of General Practice, 72(725), e865-e872. https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2022.0040

In Sydney Local Health District, we acknowledge that we are living and working on Gadigal, Wangal and Bediagal land, part of the EORA Nation. We pay our respect to all elders past, present and emerging. Our vision is to have the healthiest Aboriginal community in Australia.

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