Inside the bold MCRI plan to help Australian children’s health forever

Australia’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) has launched a bold plan for managing some of the biggest children’s health challenges for decades to come.

Its researchers want to work with more than 60,000 Aussie kids and their families to see if the key to transforming their health outcomes lies in managing weight, sleep, movement and blood pressure*.

WHAT IS THE MCRI?
The Institute was co-founded 40 years ago by philanthropist* and child health advocate* Dame Elisabeth Murdoch and pediatrician* and genetics* pioneer Professor David Danks, who set out to “do something” to help the nation’s sick children.

Together, they built a lasting legacy that now comprises 1800 scientists, researchers and clinicians. The ethos* throughout has been simple: For all. Forever.

MCRI global ambassador Sarah Murdoch has been involved with the Institute for more than 25 years. She is Dame Elisabeth Murdoch’s granddaughter-in-law and the wife of Lachlan Murdoch*.

In an interview with Sky News Australia to mark 40 years of MCRI, Ms Murdoch said the science gave her a lot of pride.

“And we should be proud as Australians,” she said. “The level of the research that’s being done is not only benefiting Australian children, but benefiting children all around the world.”

WHY DOES THE WORK OF THE MCRI MATTERS
MCRI director Professor Kathryn North said that for the first time in a generation, children’s health was worse than that of their parents.

Professor North said MCRI wanted to reverse the trend, “at scale, speed and low cost”.

Through its Generation Australia program, MCRI will bring together two of the largest and most in-depth studies of their kind: Generation Victoria (GenV), involving 50,000 children, and ORIGINS, which follows 10,000 children and their families in Western Australia, led out of The Kids Research Institute Australia.

A new project called GenHeart would be a co-ordinated 10-year plan to improve long-term wellbeing and reverse obesity trends among children and their parents.

If funded, it will launch four world-first projects next year called GenWeight, GenPressure, GenSleep and GenMove.

WHAT IS THE FOCUS OF THE PLANNED PROJECTS?
These will focus on children’s heart health and blood pressure, aiming to motivate kids to love sport, tackle the nation’s childhood weight crisis and develop a stepped approach to getting kids to sleep longer as a way of improving their general wellbeing and mental health.

MCRI director Professor Melissa Wake said this was a rare opportunity to test some important questions affecting children’s health, but the projects needed funding.

“And all of these (projects) would have benefits, not just in terms of a healthier BMI but real benefits for families as well,” Prof Wake said.

“If we get funding, we want to look at four or possibly more trials over the period of five to 10 years, where you can look at the impact of each individual trial separately but also look at the impact of any combination of interventions.”

One large, simple trial would target bringing forward bedtime for children.

“There’s good evidence that a simple nudge and basic support interventions can help parents to get their kids to bed earlier,” she said. “There’s also the well-established link between longer sleep duration and (lower) BMI*.

“But that’s never been tested to see whether it can be achieved at population scale and whether it does reduce children’s BMI towards a healthier weight. So that would be another trial.”

Prof Wake said the third and fourth trials would be GenMove and GenPressure, “where we take young children’s blood pressure in the classroom”.

“There’s been a lot of trials trying to get kids to be more active during school time and they’ve had pretty limited effects,” she said. “What we now understand is that the big risk periods for unhealthy weight gain is not during school days, it’s during non-school days: weekends and holidays.

“We want to look at activity programs that support kids to enjoy physical activities. So things like increasing lean mass and increasing fundamental motor skills so they can enjoy doing sports and other things out of school hours.”

These 40 brave children and teens all show why medical research is so important. To mark MCRI’s 40th anniversary, you can read how they have been helped by passionate doctors, healthcare workers, researchers and scientists across Australia.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• blood pressure: a measure of the pressure at which the blood is sent by the heart through the body
• philanthropist: someone who gives money to help people who are poor or sick
• advocate: someone who speaks for, supports, or represents a person or group of people who may need extra help or protection
• pediatrician: a doctor who has special training in medical care for children
• genetics: the study of heredity and how qualities and characteristics are passed on from one generation to another by means of genes
• ethos: the set of moral beliefs, attitudes, habits and so on that are characteristic of a person or group
• Lachlan Murdoch: grandson of Dame Elisabeth Murdoch Mr Murdoch is chair of News Corp Chair. Kids News is published by News Corp Australia and is freely available to Australian students as part of the News in the Community program
• BMI: body mass index, calculated using your weight and height (your weight divided by your height squared)

EXTRA READING

Busy brains drive science of sleep

Fearless kids run toward the future

Queen Mary visits sick Aussie kids

QUICK QUIZ

1. Who founded the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and how long ago?
2. What has the Institute’s ethos been since its work began?
3. What is the name of the WA study and how many children are involved?
4. How many scientists, researchers and clinicians are part of the MCRI?
5. The MCRI needs funding for which four projects?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Raising healthier kids
This research wants to look at activity programs that support kids to enjoy physical activities to encourage them to be more active.

Come up with your own program, game, app or activity that could be developed and funded to roll out to children in a trial.

Explain your program, how it works, and how it might encourage children to be more active.

Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Digital Technologies, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
Read some of the profiles of the children and their serious health issues.

How has medical research helped these children?

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Science, Health and Physical Education, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Exercise the body and the mind
Exercise is not only important for the body, but it’s a lot of fun as well. Let’s bring more exercise into classroom learning by creating a VCOP PE game.

You can add a VCOP challenge to pretty much any game, and it’s a great way to encourage the teacher to let the class play more games.

Here is an example to get you started, then you create one of your own.

VCOP dodgeball
The normal rules of dodgeball apply. Two teams throw soft balls at each other and if you get hit, you have to sit out. The team who knocks out all the players on the other team, wins.

VCOP challenge: when you get eliminated, collect a mini-whiteboard and a basic clause from the sidelines. Up-level the sentence (make it better) by adding VCOP. When you show the teacher your completed sentence, you can return to the game.

Play for a set amount of time and the team with the most players left on the court wins.

Support: use the “Up-Level It” card set – players have to complete one card from the set instead of completing all VCOP challenges.

What can you come up with?