HRC clinical research training fellow Dr Jin Russell was recently awarded the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) 2016 New Zealand Paediatric Trainee Research Award for Excellence.
Jin is an advanced trainee in general paediatrics and community child health with the RACP. She is currently completing a PhD in paediatrics at the University of Auckland's Centre for Longitudinal Research – He Ara Ki Muawas - with the support of a HRC clinical research training fellowship.
For her doctoral research project 'Pathways to healthy development in New Zealand preschool children', Jin is investigating early child health and developmental trajectories and how these early life trajectories may be socially stratified. Her research draws on data collected in New Zealand’s contemporary, longitudinal study of child development Growing Up in New Zealand. This multidisciplinary study is tracking the development of nearly 7000 children born in 2009-10, in the context of their diverse environments, from before birth through to adulthood.
Jin’s award-winning presentation was entitled 'Cumulative socioeconomic disadvantage increases the risk of multi-morbidity in early childhood'.
“The research I presented showed that the prevalence of children with multiple chronic conditions (multi-morbidity) in early childhood is much more common than previously reported in the literature,” says Jin.
“Most previously published studies have suggested that multi-morbidity in children is relatively uncommon, at a prevalence of 2 per cent or so. My research shows that one in ten children in the Growing Up in New Zealand cohort experiences multiple chronic conditions.”
She found that when mothers reported higher levels of social disadvantage, their children were more likely to experience multiple chronic conditions at age two. In contrast to previously reported studies, she showed that the relationship remained statistically significant at the highest level of disadvantage even after taking other possible explanatory factors into account.
Jin says that the number of people living with multiple chronic conditions makes this a significant health issue, and challenges the single-disease framework that dominates the literature.
“Children with multiple chronic conditions are at increased risk of other poor outcomes such as educational difficulties, disability, family breakdown, and developmental delay,” she adds.
Her award includes travel and accommodation expenses and the opportunity to present her research at the RACP Congress in Melbourne in May 2017.
News article courtesy of Growing Up in New Zealand (University of Auckland)