Children’s Health

Getting shy children to ‘face their fears’ and coaching parents in exposure therapy is the focus of a new study at The University of Queensland. UQ’s School of Psychology’s Dr Simon Byrne said while shyness was common among children, parents should seek support if it was causing problems in their child’s life. Figures suggest that

Uses of facial images and facial recognition technologies – to unlock a phone or in airport security – are becoming increasingly common in everyday life. But how do people feel about using such data in healthcare and biomedical research? Through surveying over 4,000 US adults, researchers found that a significant proportion of respondents considered the

Over a decade ago, UCLA physician-scientists began using a pioneering gene therapy they developed to treat children born with a rare and deadly immune system disorder. They now report that the effects of the therapy appear to be long-lasting, with 90% of patients who received the treatment eight to 11 years ago still disease-free. ADA-SCID,

A cell-based influenza vaccine has effectively provided protection against the flu in children and adolescents, according to a new study. The research found the cell-based quadrivalent influenza vaccine (QIVc) produced a sufficient immune response in children aged two to 18 years. The lead investigator on the study was Professor Terry Nolan, head of the Vaccine

An artificial intelligence (AI)-based technology rapidly diagnoses rare disorders in critically ill children with high accuracy, according to a report by scientists from University of Utah Health and Fabric Genomics, collaborators on a study led by Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. The benchmark finding, published in Genomic Medicine, foreshadows the next phase of medicine,

The emotional connection between a mother and her newborn baby can lay the foundation for the child’s development and the family’s outcomes. But poor mental health after giving birth can make it difficult for a mother to form this connection, known as mother-infant bonding. Given the rise of depression and anxiety symptoms due to the

Children with cerebral palsy can gain greater use of an impaired arm and hand with larger doses of Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) – without increasing stress for parents, according to a new study by researchers at Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, UVA Children’s, The Ohio State University, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The

Intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) — a common treatment for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) — likely works by depleting immune cells called neutrophils, according to a recent study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). MIS-C is a rare condition that usually affects school-age children who initially had only mild COVID-19 symptoms or

A devastating genetic disease called CDKL5 deficiency disorder (CDD), which strikes in early childhood, may be significantly treatable even in adulthood, a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania suggests. CDD is caused by the mutation of a gene called CDKL5, which is thought to play an important role

A researcher at Binghamton University, State University of New York has received a $1.74 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to explore how prenatal alcohol exposure leads to ‘anxious’ offspring. Binghamton University Associate Professor of Psychology Marvin Diaz received the grant. Called “Prenatal Alcohol and Anxiety: An Ontogenetic Role for CRF,” the

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded researchers at University of California San Diego approximately $30 million over five years to expand and deepen longitudinal studies of the developing brain in children. Specifically, the funding will accelerate an ambitious effort to better understand how young brains and minds develop from infancy through early childhood

Young adults who experience a traumatic injury are now more likely to have insurance coverage and access to rehabilitation if they live in a state that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), new study findings show. Further, states that expanded Medicaid also saw greater reductions in socioeconomic and racial disparities in certain areas,

Children from less affluent backgrounds are likely to have found COVID-19 lockdowns more challenging to their mental health because they experienced a lower connection with nature than their wealthier peers, a new study suggests. A study has found that children who increased their connection to nature during the first COVID-19 lockdown were likely to have

Children with hemiparetic cerebral palsy, a movement disorder that affects use of one side of the body, showed improved use of the arm and hand after receiving a high dose of Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) in a clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study, published in Pediatrics, suggests that the more

In late December 2019, a novel pneumonia-like lung infection was reported in the Chinese province of Hubei. This, in turn, led to the ongoing coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic. COVID-19 is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is closely related to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (the Middle East Respiratory

There has been a considerable amount of controversy surrounding whether pregnant women with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are at a higher risk for poor outcomes for themselves and their babies. A recent study suggests the answer depends on the presence of symptoms at near term. “Most pregnancy and delivery outcomes were similar between COVID-19-positive

In an unprecedented effort to address the harmful effects of structural racism on health, 60 predominantly Black neighborhoods in Philadelphia will be part of an ambitious study to assess the impact of a multi-component intervention addressing both environmental and economic injustice on health and well-being, led by Penn Medicine researchers Eugenia C. South, MD, MHSP,

The World Health Organization’s recommendation of broad deployment of the first malaria vaccine among children in Sub-Saharan Africa has been widely celebrated, but scientists warn it could face hurdles in its acquisition and distribution by endemic countries. The WHO on Wednesday recommended extensive use of the RTS,S vaccine among children in Sub-Saharan Africa and other

One way to make health care more personalized is to use a person’s DNA sequence — or genome — to predict their risk of disease. But as the field of precision medicine grows, so have concerns that we may be leaving a large fraction of Americans out. Disease prevalence and severity can vary considerably across

The findings of a new study suggest that childhood adversity is a major contributor to early and preventable causes of mortality and a powerful determinant of long term physical and mental health. Researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Harvard University found that childhood adversity is associated with elevated risk for chronic