Exciting Announcement!
Nature Human Behaviour publication — November 2018

Associate Professsor Lisa Smithers,
Professor John Lynch, Dr Alyssa Sawyer
and Dr Catherine Chittleborough from the
BetterStart group, and their colleagues
Dr Neil Davies and Professor George Davey Smith from the University of Bristol (UK), recently had their paper “A systematic review and meta-analysis of effects of early life non-cognitive skills on academic, psychosocial, cognitive and health outcomes” published in Nature Human Behaviour
— congratulations to all!

The paper can be accessed here and the supplementary material can be found here.  For more information about the results and the University news item, please click here and to access the data from the study, please click here.

BetterStart

Child Health and Development Research Group

Research conducted by the BetterStart group aims to understand how to ensure infants and children have the best start to life. Our studies focus on ways to enhance health and development throughout their life course.

The BetterStart group is led by Professor John Lynch who is an internationally recognised scholar in epidemiology and public health.  In 2005, he was awarded a Canada Research Chair in Population Health. In 2007, his work in social epidemiology and public health was recognised with an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Medical Science from the University of Copenhagen. In 2009, he was awarded a prestigious NHMRC Australia Fellowship. In 2015, he was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. He has over 300 publications and each year since 2014, he has received Thomson Reuters' "Highly Cited Researcher" status that places him in the top 1% of cited scientists internationally in his field.

This interdisciplinary group consists of researchers with common interests in early childhood health and development. The group has backgrounds in epidemiology, public health, nutrition, paediatrics, biostatistics and psychology. Collectively, the BetterStart group have expertise in observational studies, randomised controlled trials, pragmatic trials, data linkage and translational research activities in South Australia, nationally and internationally.

Here's a snapshot of our work that was produced as part of being a finalist in the 2017 SA Science Excellence Awards.

Website last updated January 2019