Measuring vision using innate behaviours in mice with intact and impaired retina function.

Measuring vision in rodents is a critical step for understanding vision, improving models of human disease, and developing therapies. Established behavioural tests for perceptual vision, such as the visual water task, rely on learning. The learning process, while effective for sighted animals, can be laborious and stressful in animals with impaired vision, requiring long periods of training.

Changing mortality patterns in Kimberley Aborigines.

Background/aims: To examine the causes of officially reported deaths from several categories among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in a statistical division of north-west Australia from 2002 to 2011.

Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of official Death Registration data to calculate mortality rate ratios (Aboriginal against non-Aboriginal) for that decade in six major International Classification of Disease (ICD)-10 categories. The study setting was the West Kimberley Health District in the far north of Western Australia.

Why closing the Aboriginal health gap is so elusive.

A wide gap persists between the health of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians despite a recent Federal government commitment to close the gap by 2030. The complex underlying factors include socioeconomic and environmental disadvantage, inadequate education, underemployment, racial prejudice, high-risk health-related behaviours and limited access to clinical services and health promotion programmes. Over recent decades some aspects of Aboriginal health have deteriorated badly, largely from a surge in chronic 'lifestyle' diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular and kidney disorders plus the effects of tobacco smoking, alcohol and drug abuse and high rates of violence and trauma.

Population dynamics of methicillin-susceptible and -resistant Staphylococcus aureus in remote communities.

Objectives: Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) was first reported in remote regions of Western Australia (WA) in 1992 and is now the predominant MRSA isolated in the State. To gain insights into the emergence of CA-MRSA, 2146 people living in 11 remote WA communities were screened for colonization with S. aureus.

Indigenous health part 2: the underlying causes of the health gap.

In this Review we delve into the underlying causes of health disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and provide an Indigenous perspective to understanding these inequalities. We are able to present only a snapshot of the many research publications about Indigenous health. Our aim is to provide clinicians with a framework to better understand such matters.

Indigenous health part 1: determinants and disease patterns.

The world's almost 400 million Indigenous people have low standards of health. This poor health is associated with poverty, malnutrition, overcrowding, poor hygiene, environmental contamination, and prevalent infections. Inadequate clinical care and health promotion, and poor disease prevention services aggravate this situation.

Assessment of risks of "lifestyle" diseases including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes by anthropometry in remote Australian Aborigines.

Objective: To evaluate waist-to-height ratio (WTHR), waist girth and body mass index (BMI) as predictors of cardiovascular risk factors in Australian Aborigines.

Design: Indices were examined as predictors of mean blood pressures (BP), blood lipids, glucose, insulin and as predictors of hypertension, decreased HDL-cholesterol, elevated glucose and type 2 diabetes.

Setting: Aboriginal communities in remote north-west Australia.

Hospital admissions and length of stay for coronary disease in an Aboriginal cohort.

Background And Aims: Coronary disease (CHD)-related hospital admission is more common among indigenous than non-indigenous Australians. We aimed to identify predictors of hospital admission potentially useful in planning prevention programs.

Methods And Results: Length of stay (LOS), interval between, and number of recurrent admissions were modelled with proportional hazards or negative binomial models using lifestyle data recorded in 1988-1989 among Aborigines (256 women, 258 men, aged 15-88years) linked to hospital records to 2002.

The CUPDAY Study: prebiotic-probiotic milk product in 1-3-year-old children attending childcare centres.

Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of a milk product containing probiotics and prebiotics (CUPDAY Milk) on the incidence of diarrhoea in children attending daycare centres.

Methods: The study was undertaken in a randomized controlled trial with 496 children aged 1-3 years attending 29 childcare centres in Perth, Australia. The endpoint for the study was the number of days in which children were recorded as having four or more stools.

Predictors of type 2 diabetes and diabetes-related hospitalisation in an Australian Aboriginal cohort.

Predictors of diabetes and diabetes-related hospitalisations were examined in 15-88-year-old Aboriginal Australians (256 women, 258 men), surveyed in 1988-1989. Linkage to death records and hospitalisations to 2002 allowed proportional hazards or negative binomial modelling. Forty-five men (18%) and 59 women (24%) developed diabetes.

Nutrition-related disorders in Indigenous Australians: how things have changed.

Awareness of a serious Indigenous health problem in Australia did not emerge until the 1960s and 1970s. Much attention was focused at the time on poor pregnancy outcomes, high infant and young child mortality rates, and childhood malnutrition and impaired growth, often associated with high infectious disease burdens. Although that situation has improved somewhat, Indigenous infant and child health is still poor compared with that of other Australian children.

Health-related behaviours as predictors of mortality and morbidity in Australian Aborigines.

Objective: To examine predictors of coronary heart disease (CHD) and all-cause mortality in Aboriginal Australians.

Method: In 1988-89, a survey of Western Australian Aborigines (256 women, 258 men) aged 15-88 years documented diet, alcohol and smoking habits. Linkage to mortality and hospital admissions to the end of 2002 provided longitudinal data for modelling of coronary heart disease endpoints and all-cause mortality using Cox regression.

Under-nutrition affects time to recurrence of gastroenteritis among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children.

This study investigated whether under-nutrition affected time to hospitalization for recurrence of gastroenteritis in Australian children. Linked hospitalization records of all infants, born in 1995 and 1996 in Western Australia, who were admitted for gastroenteritis during their first year of life (n=1001), were retrieved. A survival frailty model was used for determining the factors influencing the recurrent times over the subsequent seven years.

An Aboriginal-driven program to prevent, control and manage nutrition-related "lifestyle" diseases including diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes and other nutrition-related so-called "lifestyle" diseases, including obesity, and cardiovascular and chronic renal disease, are very prevalent in Australian Aboriginal people and contribute to their high rates of chronic illness and premature mortality. An Aboriginal-driven, community-based health protection, health promotion and improved disease detection, management and care program was introduced in four remote, discrete communities in the far north of Western Australia (WA) in order to attempt to prevent these disorders through community-based lifestyle modification. More energetic screening for early risk factors is involved as well as early dietary and exercise interventions and medical treatment, when indicated.

A robustified modeling approach to analyze pediatric length of stay.

Purpose: Length of stay (LOS) is an important measure of the cost of pediatric hospitalizations, but the guidelines developed so far are not rigorously evidence-based. This study demonstrates a robust gamma mixed regression approach to analyze the positively skewed LOS variable, which has implications for future studies of pediatric health care management.

Methods: The robustified approach is applied to analyze hospital discharge data on childhood gastroenteritis in Western Australia (n=514).

Multilevel modelling of hospitalisations for recurrent diarrhoeal disease in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal infants and young children in Western Australia.

A multilevel proportional hazards model was used to determine the prognostic factors affecting hospitalisations for recurrent diarrhoeal disease in infants and young children. All infants born in 1996 who had index gastroenteritis admission to Western Australian (WA) hospitals during their first year of life were included in our study cohort (n = 486). There were 618 hospital admissions for infectious diarrhoea over the 6-year follow-up period.

Aboriginal mothers, breastfeeding and smoking.

Objective: To document the smoking practices of Aboriginal mothers living in Perth during pregnancy and during the subsequent year while feeding their infants.

Method: A cohort of mothers was followed from the time of delivery for 12 months to obtain details of infant feeding practices. A total of 455 mothers delivered between May 2000 and July 2001 and 425 completed the baseline questionnaire.

Caring for the health and medical and emotional needs of children of migrants and asylum seekers.

Unlabelled: Political turmoil, military conflicts and other international sociological upheavals are causing significant immigration of large numbers of people, including infants and children, in Europe. Many of these young migrants are refugees. These youngsters have significant health needs, and medical conditions (such as infectious diseases) and mental health problems due to their previous stressful situations and the difficulties that they often experience while settling, even temporarily, into their new environments.

Factors associated with the initiation of breast-feeding by Aboriginal mothers in Perth.

Objectives: To identify the prevalence of breast-feeding at discharge and the determinants of breast-feeding initiation amongst Aboriginal women.

Design: A prospective cohort study using a self-administered baseline questionnaire and telephone-administered follow-up interviews.

Setting: Six hospitals with maternity wards in Perth, Western Australia.

Hospitalisation for gastroenteritis in Western Australia.

Aims: To document gastroenteritis hospitalisations of the 1995-96 cohort of infants born in Western Australia to mid-2002, and to assess factors associated with their hospitalisations and readmissions.

Methods: Retrospective analysis of the State's hospitalisation data, Midwives' Notification of Births data, the Australian Bureau of Statistics mortality data and clinical and demographic information.

Results: Aboriginal infants were hospitalised for gastroenteritis eight times more frequently than their non-Aboriginal peers, and were readmitted more frequently and sooner for diarrhoeal illnesses than the other group.

Orphaned and vulnerable to infection, undernutrition and early death: increasing threats to infants and children.

Unlabelled: Infants and young children in Guinea-Bissau who were made motherless had much higher mortality rates than a control group of subjects. Child mortality was higher in rural than urban children and was highest under 2 y of age and within 6 mo of their mothers' deaths. The authors of this study, which appears elsewhere in this issue, suggest that premature weaning may contribute to this excess mortality.

Gastroenteritis and environmental health among Aboriginal infants and children in Western Australia.

Objective: To retrospectively examine rates of hospitalization of infants and children in Western Australia for gastroenteritis from 1994 through 2000.

Methodology: Analysis of hospital separations data from the Hospital Morbidity Data System of the Department of Health, Western Australia.

Results: Rates of hospitalization of Aboriginal infants and children for gastroenteritis from 1994 to 2000 in Western Australia were approximately seven times higher than for their non-Aboriginal peers.