Health Behaviours

Our health behaviours team recently merged with our nutrition team to deliver interdisciplinary and comprehensive research on health during and after childhood cancer. Our health behaviours research focuses on developing interventions to educate young people with serious illness about their long-term outcomes and to empower them with the resources they need to maintain a healthy lifestyle, including improvement of dietary intake during and after hospitalisation.

We have recruited one of the largest cohorts of childhood cancer survivors in the Southern Hemisphere to address critical questions in childhood cancer, for example collecting evidence on long term late effects of chemotherapy. We aim to uncover modifiable risk factors and evaluate interventions which can reduce the burden of illness on young people. Most recently, our team has piloted a new model of care for childhood cancer survivors to address survivor-reported barriers to care (Re-engage) and an exercise intervention (Picasso). We created an Australian first ehealth program to improve fruit and vegetable intake of cancer young survivors. Reboot-Kids aims to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease in adult survivors of childhood cancer. Our team also developed a world-first decision aid for improving decision making for parents of children requiring nutrition support in hospital, recognised as a finalist in the SCHN 2018 Quality Awards. 

Research team

Dr Christina Signorelli
​Team Leader
Maria Schaffer
​Research Officer
Lauren Ha
PhD candidate
Miriam Siever
​ILP
Dr Jennifer Cohen
​Team Leader
Dr David Mizrahi
Postdoctoral Fellow
Christine Kite
Nursing Research Assistant
Dr Jordana McLoone
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Lauren Touyz
Postdoctoral Fellow
Jessica Tan
​ILP student
               
Dr Selena Russo
Research Consultant
Paayal Gohil
PhD candidate
Weihan Chen
​ILP student

Research studies

Reboot Kids hopes to better support childhood cancer survivors and their families with eating habits after treatment.
To support survivors following their treatment, we are giving survivors the chance to trial an online program called ‘Re-engage’, including connection to an e-tool to help manage their care.
This study aims to determine cardiovascular fitness among childhood cancer survivors.
 This study aims to systematically develop an evidence-based model of best care for the Long Term Follow Up of paediatric cancer survivors