Publications

To explore and interpret the messages women receive during their first antenatal care visit, relating to alcohol consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the feasibility and acceptability of the research protocol for a collaborative cross-generation health study in the community and test recruitment and outcome measures for the main study. This feasibility study included pregnant women who were intending to give birth in the Illawarra-Shoalhaven region in Eastern Australia. The area includes a large, regional referral hospital, with capacity to treat specialist and complex cases. Pregnant women were asked to participate in five data collection waves beginning at 22 weeks gestation and ending with a 6-month post-partum appointment. Recruitment was then extended, via the pregnant women, to also include fathers and maternal grandmothers.

The consent and community engagement process for research with Indigenous communities is rarely evaluated. Research protocols are not always collaborative, inclusive or culturally respectful. If participants do not trust or understand the research, selection bias may occur in recruitment, affecting study results potentially denying participants the opportunity to provide more knowledge and greater understanding about their community. Poorly informed consent can also harm the individual participant and the community as a whole.

Prenatal exposure to alcohol has adverse ramifications on foetal development resulting in developmental abnormalities and major congenital anomalies. Experimental studies have documented effects on kidney structure and function among offspring exposed to alcohol during foetal life; however, human evidence is scarce. The study aimed to determine the development of CKD among a cohort of 30-year-old Australian offspring whose mothers reported consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. The study sample comprised 1626 offspring of the Australia cohort study (MUSP) whose serum creatinine was assessed at 30 years of age and CKD was categorized from stage 1 to stage 5 based on their level of eGFR following the CKD-EPI definition.

We used a systematic review approach to locate all clinical and preclinical studies across a broad range of health outcomes in offspring exposed to prenatal alcohol. Our search encompassed four databases (PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE and Web of Science) and titles/abstracts from retrieved studies were screened against strict inclusion/exclusion criteria. Published in 2019

The Western Australian Alcohol and Drug Interagency Strategy 2018-2022 provides a guide for government and non-government organisations as well as the wider community to prevent and reduce the adverse impacts of alcohol and other drug use in Western Australia. It references FASD.