The building blocks for good health are laid early in life.

That is why Menzies researchers are striving to discover ways to prevent and treat conditions which are affecting the health of Indigenous children.

It’s a sad fact that young Indigenous people are more likely to suffer from diseases such as pneumonia and that only one in five children in remote Indigenous communities has normal hearing because of severe ear infections. Young Indigenous children are more likely to be hospitalised than non-Indigenous kids, and seven out of every ten Indigenous children can expect to have scabies and skin sores in the first year of their life.

Poor health and poor education are strongly linked. A child suffering from poor nutrition or multiple ear infections will have poor concentration and learning ability which can seriously affect the way they live their lives into the future.  

Here at Menzies, we want to help the Indigenous children of today become the healthy adults of tomorrow. That is why we conduct research that matters.  We don’t just collect data, we discover solutions. Our researchers are discovering better ways to treat common problems and we are teaching local people how to improve the health of the next generation of Indigenous adults.

To find out more about our Child Health research areas please click on the research area links at left.