Associate Professor Gabrielle McCallum

Principal Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer, Child and Maternal Health Division

Qualifications:

National Excellence in Education Leadership, Women in Leadership, 2017; PhD, Charles Darwin University, 2015; Masters of Public Health, Charles Darwin University, 2010; Graduate Diploma of Public Health, Charles Darwin University, 2008; Bachelor of Nursing, University of South Australia, 1998

Approved level of HDR supervision at Charles Darwin University:

Primary Supervisor

Location:

Darwin - Royal Darwin Hospital campus

Biography:

A/Prof Gabrielle McCallum is a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer, Nurse academic, and Program Leader of Menzies’ Child Health Respiratory team in Darwin. Having worked in the Northern Territory for over two decades, Gabrielle’s passion is to improve clinical outcomes for children at-risk for poor lung health outcome, through preventing early and recurrent acute lower respiratory infections, evidence-based research, culturally appropriate educational resources, and translating research findings into meaningful and culturally appropriate outcomes. 

Gabrielle’s work includes multiple large, NHMRC-funded multi-centre randomised controlled trials and other observational studies with a multidisciplinary team, extending nationally and internationally to New Zealand, Alaska, Malaysia, and Timor-Leste.

A/Prof McCallum’s novel randomised controlled trials, and follow-up studies, are the world’s first trials on bronchiolitis in First Nations children. Her outcomes have been translated into changes for health policy to improve follow-up post-hospitalisation for bronchiolitis and directly into national and international bronchiolitis treatment guidelines. Her research has led to a paradigm shift in paediatric respiratory management of bronchiolitis across the Northern Territory. 

A/Prof McCallum’s passion for improving respiratory education led to developing and evaluating the first, First-Nations-specific educational flipcharts for common childhood respiratory conditions (bronchiolitis, pneumonia, bronchiectasis and asthma) that have been adapted to a multi-lingual mobile application “Lung Health for Kids”.
 

Research Themes
  • Child and Maternal Health
  • Respiratory Health
     
  1. McCallum GB, Fong SM, Grimwood K, Nathan AM, Byrnes CA, Ooi MH, Nachiappan N, Saari N, Morris PS, Yeo TW, Ware RS, Elogius BW, Oguoma VM, Yerkovich ST, de Bruyne J, Lawrence KA, Lee B, Upham JW, Torzillo PJ, Chang AB. Extended Versus Standard Antibiotic Course Duration in Children <5 Years of Age Hospitalized With Community-acquired Pneumonia in High-risk Settings: Four-week Outcomes of a Multicenter, Double-blind, Parallel, Superiority Randomized Controlled Trial. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2022 Jul 1;41:549-555. Epub 2022 Jun 7. PMID: 35476706.
  2. McCallum GB, Morris PS, Grimwood K, Maclennan C, White AV, Chatfield MD, Sloots TP, Mackay IM, Smith-Vaughan H, Mckay CC, Versteegh LA, Jacobsen N, Mobberley C, Byrnes CA, Chang AB. Three-weekly doses of azithromycin for Indigenous infants hospitalised with bronchiolitis: A multi-centre, randomised, placebo-controlled trial. Front Pediatr 2015;3.
  3. McCallum GB, Chatfield MD, Morris PS, Chang AB. Risk factors for adverse outcomes of Indigenous infants hospitalised with bronchiolitis. Pediatr Pulmonol 2016;51:613-23.
  4. McCallum GB, Plumb EJ, Morris PS, Chang AB. Antibiotics for persistent cough or wheeze following acute bronchiolitis in children. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2017;8:CD009834.
  5. Singleton RJ, Valery PC, Morris PS, Byrnes CA, Grimwood K, Redding G, Torzillo PJ, McCallum GB, Chikoyak L, Mobberley C, Holman RC, Chang AB. Indigenous children from three countries with non-cystic fibrosis chronic suppurative lung disease/bronchiectasis. Pediatr Pulmonol 2014;49:189-200.
  6. Valery PC, Morris PS, Byrnes CA, Grimwood K, Torzillo PJ, Bauert PA, Masters IB, Diaz A, McCallum GB, Mobberley C, Tjhung I, Hare KM, Ware RS, Chang AB. Long-term azithromycin for Indigenous children with non-cystic-fibrosis bronchiectasis or chronic suppurative lung disease (Bronchiectasis Intervention Study): a multicentre, double-blind, randomised controlled trial. Lancet Respir Med 2013;8:610-20.
  7. McCallum GB, Binks MJ. The epidemiology of chronic suppurative lung disease and bronchiectasis in children and adolescents. Front Pediatr 2017;5.
  8. McCallum GB, Singleton RJ, Redding GJ, Grimwood K, Byrnes CA, Valery PC, Mobberley C, Oguoma VM, Eg KP, Morris PS, Chang AB. A decade on: Follow-up findings of Indigenous children with bronchiectasis. Pediatric Pulmonol 2020 55:975-85.
  9. McCallum GB, Oguoma VM, Versteegh LA, Wilson CA, Bauert P, Spain B, Chang AB. Comparison of Profiles of First Nations and non-First Nations children with bronchiectasis over two 5-Year periods in the Northern Territory, Australia. Chest 2021 Oct;160:1200-1210.
  10. Chang AB, Normansell R, Griwmood K, Alexopoulou E, Bell L, Boyd J, Bush A, Chalmers JD, Hill AT, Karadag B, Midulla F, McCallum GB, Powell Z, Snijders D, Song WJ, Tonia T, Wilson C, Zacharasiewicz A, Kantar A. European Respiratory Society guidelines for the management of children and adolescents with bronchiectasis. Eur Respir J 2021 Aug 26;58:2002990.

Read more at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=mccallum%20GB&sort=date&pos=5

  1. Preventing infant wheeze and childhood asthma
  2. Retail Pharmacy | What's  app-ening with my lungs?
  3. NT News | Lung health app
  4. What’s app-ening with my lungs?
  5. Menzies app improving asthma management in communities
  6. NT News | Asthma app clears air on cure
  7. Media Release | Improving knowledge and understanding of asthma for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families online
  8. Better child lung health
  9. ABC online | Research targeting asthma and smoking
  10. ABC TV coverage of lung capacity study collaboration
  11. $25k grant boosts lung researcher
  12. 2015 Emerging Health Researcher Award winner announced
  13. Researcher tackles NT respiratory disease
  14. Pioneering asthma education program and research in Darwin schools
  15. New talking posters to tackle chronic cough in Indigenous communities
  16. My story: Gabrielle McCallum, nurse and PhD candidate