Lay summary
Acute respiratory infections (ARIs) cause illness and death for many children in the Pacific Islands, including Fiji. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted that healthcare services are often fragile and hard to access when people are very ill. My research will look at how to improve access to healthcare for parents with young children who get sick with ARI. It will focus on children in Fiji, but has a New Zealand component, too. The research has four aims: first, to measure the burden of ARIs in Fijian children; second, to describe the pathways to healthcare that children and their caregivers use to try to access care when they develop ARIs; third, to understand the children and their caregivers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices about ARIs; and, fourth, to recommend improvements for access to healthcare within the Fiji health system, and so contribute to better health access for all.