News

ORIGINS Project reaches key milestone

Apr 23, 2018

The ORIGINS Project, a collaboration between The Telethon Kids Institute and Joondalup Health Campus, has achieved a major milestone – recruiting its 1000th family.

The unique long-term study, which is the largest study of its kind nationally and one of the most comprehensive studies of pregnant women and their families in Australia to date, aims to recruit 10,000 families whose babies are born at Joondalup Health Campus over the next five years.

ORIGINS will follow the progress of pregnant women, their partners and babies for the first five years of the baby’s life, following an increasing understanding that an individual’s lifetime health and disease may be programmed at a very early stage – while a child is still in the womb.

The project will collect detailed information on how a child’s early environment and parents’ physical health and genetics influence the risk of a wide range of diseases and conditions such as asthma, eczema, food allergies, hay fever, diabetes, obesity and autism. It will also look at how language development can affect outcomes such as academic achievement, social ability and relationships.

ORIGINS Co-Director and Head of Paediatrics at Joondalup Health Campus, Professor Desiree Silva, said she is delighted to meet the significant milestone of 1000 families recruited to the study.

“Our ultimate goal is to recruit 10,000 families. There’s so much information that you can obtain from that number of families, and that’s information that can be used by researchers all around the world to make a real impact,” she said.

“We believe that the ORIGINS Project will change the way we look at childhood development.”

The 1000th family to be recruited – pregnant mother Jess, her husband Michael and their 2-year-old son Eli – said they are excited to be part of the project.

“We’re really excited to be the 1000th participant in the ORIGINS project. It’s something that really interests me, especially because I have allergies myself,” Jess said. “I worry if my baby will have allergies in the future so I’m happy to help the research towards that.”

“I’m hoping that this research will be used not only in WA, but world-wide, to help many children have a better and healthier future.”

ORIGINS Co-Director and Associate Director of Research at the Telethon Kids Institute, Professor Susan Prescott, said the team is focused on the big picture.

“ORIGINS is a local project with a global vision, recognising that planetary health starts locally in every community. We are part of a global network of community projects, not only with local benefits, but as part of a connected grass-roots strategy to restore global health,” she said.

The ORIGINS Project is funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation and the Commonwealth Government through Telethon.