Aims: 
  • To identify measurable, modifiable targets to improve kidney transplantation outcomes for Indigenous Australians. 
Objectives: 
  • Our national research program will provide in depth understanding of the pathophysiological, health service, socioeconomic and environmental factors leading to poor outcomes for Indigenous Australians receiving kidney transplants. 

It will examine whether pharmacokinetic or immune system functional monitoring over time predicts outcomes and will also explore potential solutions within existing educational, environmental and health service frameworks. 

Summary: 

Indigenous Australians suffer a heavy burden of end-stage kidney disease, yet have poor access to kidney transplantation. Those who receive a kidney transplant have unacceptably high rates of death and transplant loss due to serious infections. 

These highly collaborative, multicentre cohort studies will characterise the immunological, health service, socioeconomic and environmental factors causing the poorer transplant outcomes seen in Indigenous Australians. 

Through identifying these causes and utilising the research team’s well-established national clinical networks to translate findings into clinical practice, this research will improve access to care and health outcomes. This national collaboration, addressing a key priority in health service delivery — How to improve kidney transplant outcomes for Indigenous Australians — is essential if we are to drive change in clinical practice.

Implications for policy and practice:

Knowledge gained from this research will be immediately translatable to the care of Indigenous patients with ESKD nationally, since the project is designed to be national in scope and many of the the CIs and AIs are national clinician leaders in the care of Indigenous ESKD patients and responsible for guideline and protocol development in their own jurisdictions and nationally. 

Chief investigator:
Project manager: