Suchergebnisse

Personalised medicine is a newly emerging field with much to offer to all populations in improved clinical treatment options. Since the 1970s, clinicians and researchers have all been working towards improving the health of Indigenous Australians. However, there has been little research on the impact of genetics on Indigenous health, how genetic and environmental factors interact to contribute to poor health in Indigenous people, and how genetic factors specific to Indigenous people affect their responses to particular treatments. This short review highlights the urgent need for more genetic studies specific to Indigenous people in order to provide more appropriate care and to improve health outcomes. This paper explores why genetic work with Indigenous communities has been limited, how personalised medicine could benefit Indigenous communities, and highlights a number of specific instances in which personalised medicine has been critical for improving morbidity and mortality in other high-risk groups. In order to take the next step in advancing the health of Indigenous peoples, targeted research into the genetic factors behind chronic diseases is critically needed. This research may allow clinicians a better understanding of how genetic factors interact with environmental factors to influence an Indigenous Australian's individual risk of disease, prognosis, and response to therapies. It is hoped that this knowledge will produce clinical interventions that will help deliver clearly targeted, more appropriate care to this at-risk population.

Environmental epigenetics is a fast-growing field of scientific research attracting interest from key stakeholders in Indigenous health internationally, including researchers, clinicians, policymakers, and advocacy organisations. It is the study of how various external factors, including food, stress, and toxins, alter genetic expression, and could be biologically passed down to children (and potentially grandchildren). This article explores the growing interest in epigenetics in Indigenous health and social policy fields in Australia and identifies the key implications and challenges for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The authors advocate for the urgent development of epigenetic research guidelines in Australia and beyond that centre Indigenous sovereignty.

Introduction: The perinatal–postnatal family environment is associated with childhood outcomes including impacts on physical and mental health and educational attainment. Family longitudinal cohort studies collect in-depth data that can capture the influence of an era on family lifestyle, mental health, chronic disease, education and financial stability to enable identification of gaps in society and provide the evidence for changes in government in policy and practice. Methods and analysis: The Queensland Family Cohort (QFC) is a prospective, observational, longitudinal study that will recruit 12 500 pregnant families across the state of Queensland (QLD), Australia and intends to follow-up families and children for three decades. To identify the immediate and future health requirements of the QLD population; pregnant participants and their partners will be enrolled by 24 weeks of gestation and followed up at 24, 28 and 36 weeks of gestation, during delivery, on-ward, 6 weeks postpartum and then every 12 months where questionnaires, biological samples and physical measures will be collected from parents and children. To examine the impact of environmental exposures on families, data related to environmental pollution, household pollution and employment exposures will be linked to pregnancy and health outcomes. Where feasible, data linkage of state and federal government databases will be used to follow the participants long term. Biological samples will be stored long term for future discoveries of biomarkers of health and disease. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval has been obtained from the Mater Research Ethics (HREC/16/MHS/113). Findings will be reported to (1) QFC participating families; (2) funding bodies, institutes and hospitals supporting the QFC; (3) federal, state and local governments to inform policy; (4) presented at local, national and international conferences and (5) disseminated by peer-review publications.