THE 2024 Asthma and Airways Career Development Fellowship was awarded yesterday to food allergy researcher A/Prof Rachel Peters (pictured).
This prestigious fellowship is a collaboration between the National Asthma Council Australia and the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand.
Peters plans to utilise this opportunity to create an innovative asthma risk prediction tool for children, focusing on integrating extensive data on food allergies, a factor significantly linked to adverse respiratory outcomes.
This tool aims to pioneer the inclusion of food allergy data to better predict asthma risks.
"This will be the first prediction model that incorporates food allergy data, which is a major contributor to respiratory issues in children," Peters explained.
The need for such a model is pressing, given the high prevalence of food allergies among Australian children and their potential risk of developing asthma.
Currently leading the HealthNuts and EarlyNuts population-based studies on food allergies and asthma, Peters is uniquely qualified to spearhead this new predictive model.
Her research has shown that infants with food allergies are four times more likely to develop asthma by age six compared to those without food allergies.
"My goal is to develop a model that can aid clinicians in diagnosing and managing asthma early." JG
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 16 Apr 24
To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 16 Apr 24