Chief Investigator: Dr Jesia Berry

Research Area: Improving children’s mental health and the impact of developmental disorders. Community Based Study.

Funding Year: 2021

Funding Amount: $96,480

Recipient: The University of Adelaide

Overview:

Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common physical disability of childhood. We have pioneered gene discovery in the aetiology of CP. However, the interaction between genes and other risk factors remains unknown. We propose to retrospectively follow 450,000 SA families over a 29-year period, including 845 where a child has CP. For at least 18% of the CP children we have precise genetic diagnosis, brain imaging and maternal risk factor questionnaire data. This whole-of-population linkage will examine temporal trends in paediatric complex chronic conditions and the genetic and non-genetic causes of CP using perinatal, biobank, register, hospitalisations, and deaths data.