‘Alarming’: Study reveals kids’ chronic disease impact

Researchers behind a new study of more than 5000 Australian children have described their findings as ‘alarming’ and ‘a wake-up call’ for government action.
 
The study, published this week in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, found 45.6% of the 11–13-year-olds surveyed live with a chronic disease or developmental condition.
 
However, one RACGP expert has warned that most Australian children will be living with compromised health ‘in another few years’ without swift preventive action.
 
‘This is not going to be 50% in another few years,’ RACGP Specific Interests Child and Young Persons Health Chair Dr Tim Jones told newsGP.
 
‘It’s going to be the vast majority of young people struggling, and our current approach isn’t serving them.’
 
Surveying 5014 children from three Australian states, the most commonly self-reported chronic diseases were hay fever (23%) and asthma (15%), while attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was the most reported developmental condition, affecting 9% of respondents.
 
The findings also revealed that being female, consuming more sugary drinks, ultra-processed foods or alcohol, participating in more screen time, having depression, anxiety, or psychological distress, were each associated with higher rates of at least one disease or condition.
 
Lead author, Dr Bridie Osman from the Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use at the University of Sydney, said the study is the first of its kind to examine the associations between common and emerging diseases, and important health behaviours and mental health in adolescents.
 
She said the issue of chronic disease and developmental conditions in young people is often overlooked as a serious public health concern.
 
‘This finding is a wake-up call that we need to do more to prioritise the health of young people,’ she said.
 
Experts responding to the findings have called for the Federal Government to take action against unhealthy food advertisements, to mandate health star ratings on packaged food and increase awareness of healthy diets.
 
Dr Jones said while the survey results are worrying, ‘terrifyingly’, he is not surprised.
 
He said that in his home state of Tasmania, 25% of school-aged children have been referred for a paediatrics assessment.
 
‘Which just says we’ve got enormous numbers of kids and young people who aren’t doing well, and they’re getting funnelled through a medical approach that’s reactive, not through a preventive approach,’ Dr Jones said.
 
‘If we’re waiting until we’ve got adolescents or young people in strife, it’s really hard to get them back; they’re already in a very tricky place.’
 
Dr Jones said while it is not clear how many of the respondents self-identified as having neurodevelopmental disorders, it is important for government and health professionals to ‘get ahead of self-diagnoses’ formed through social media.
 
‘Young people are essentially accessing echo chambers, and so it’s important to really try to not only support people in their own identity, but encourage them to have adequate and high quality assessment if they do have those concerns, rather than just relying on Tik Tok,’ he said.
 
‘We’ve got a generation that is connected online, but feeling very lonely and disconnected, and not in good health from all the determinants we can measure in terms of happiness, level of mobility and optimism.’
 
Dr Jones said it is important for GPs to ‘form strong relationships’ with their young patients and their families.
 
‘We can’t help people if we don’t understand them,’ he said. ‘We need to work with each individual young person to find their tribe, find their identity – the solutions are broader than just health here.’
 
He believes as GPs face increasing appointment pressure, messaging about who needs to see their GP has ‘slipped’.
 
‘Our group approaching adolescence, and our young people themselves, they’re a group that we need to be promoting, that we actually do want to touch base with,’ he said.
 
‘We need to find ways of offering them long appointments because they need to talk. We need to understand, and we need to help them find the tools that are going to improve their health.’
 
While many GPs had to rely on parents or guardians bringing young people to see them, Dr Jones said there are many GPs who consult a day a week at their local high school who can provide a more direct point of contact with young people.
 
This could be supported with health promotion, and potentially targeted phone calls with families, he said.
 
‘It’s getting increasingly important that we reach out to that entire generation on block and say we want to touch base much earlier in your story,’ he said.
 
‘We can’t kick the can down the road.’
 
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ADHD adolescent children chronic disease developmental issues neurodevelopment screen time