Associate Professor Kathleen Falster

I am the Director of the NSW Child E-Cohort Research Program at UNSW's School of Population Health. Below are projects led by my team that use/d the NSW Child E-Cohort data asset in the last five years.

Research projects focused on the whole population or priority populations of children and families in NSW:

1. A NSW Health funded project to inform policy and service delivery for mothers, babies, children and families in the First 2000 Days.

2. The ARC-funded Bring Them Home Keep Them Home project, led by Associate Professor BJ Newton, uses qualitative and quantitative research methods to inform the prevention of child removals and early restoration of Aboriginal children from out-of-home care (OOHC) in NSW. 

3. The MRFF-funded ACCESS project uses qualitative and quantitative research methods to inform and evaluate ear health services and outcomes for Aboriginal children in NSW.

4. The NSW Health funded evaluation of the Sustaining NSW Families program - the Outcome evaluation used local district screening and program data, linked to the NSW Child E-Cohort data asset, to emulate a trial of the program versus usual care on child outcomes in the first two years of life. 

Research projects focused on the whole population or priority populations of children and families across multiple jurisdictions:

5. An NHMRC-funded project to inform and evaluate policy and service delivery responses to children and families involved with child protection services in NSW and South Australia. 

6. An MRFF-funded project on the how well we are meeting the health needs of children in out-of-home care in NSW and South Australia. 

7. An NHMRC-funded project to inform policy and service delivery responses to support hospitalised injury and subsequent outcomes for Aboriginal children in NSW and South Australia. 

8. An ARC-funded project focused on families with multiple and complex needs in NSW, South Australia and Western Australia.

During my NHMRC Early Career Fellowship, I primarily led and collaborated on research projects focused on health outcomes in Aboriginal children and inequities, including: 

- The NHMRC-funded 'Seeding Success' study focused on early childhood health and development in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in NSW. I provide an overview of some of the study outputs in this invited presentation for the Dept. of Communities and Justice Research Strategy launch in 2021. 

- The NHMRC-funded Indigenous Health Outcomes Patient Evaluation (IHOPE) study focused on inequities in potentially avoidable hospitalisations, surgical procedures for middle ear disease, and hospitalisations for unintentional injuries between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in NSW, using whole-population linked data.

- The NHMRC-funded Study of Environment on Aboriginal Resilience and Child Health (SEARCH), which led to evidence on injuries, asthma, ear health and hospitalisations in Aboriginal children attending four Aboriginal community-controlled health services in major cities and inner regional centres in NSW.