Major grant empowers community voices to drive reduction in skin infections

Aboriginal community members throughout the Kimberley will take a lead role in driving healthy skin messages within their own communities thanks to a major funding boost to the Telethon Kids Institute’s SToP Trial.

Run in partnership with the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services, WA Country Health Services-Kimberley and Nirrumbuk Environmental Health Services, the SToP Trial is designed to “See, Treat and Prevent” skin infections and reduce the high rate of skin sores and scabies in remote Aboriginal communities.

A $357,997 Healthway grant will now take the project one step further, allowing local researchers to be employed and work alongside the SToP Trial team to enhance local skin health activities and develop culturally appropriate prevention programs tailored to their own communities. 

Associate Professor Asha Bowen, Head of Skin Health at the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, based at Telethon Kids Institute, said community design and ownership of the programs would be crucial for successful long-term outcomes.

“As well as being painful and itchy, these skin infections can lead to serious, life-threatening illnesses such as rheumatic heart disease, kidney disease and sepsis,” Professor Bowen said.

“They have become so common that they are often seen as ‘normal’ and affect close to 50 per cent of kids at any one time, so we urgently need community-driven skin health promotion activities to help prevent skin infections in the first place.

“We know that translation into targeted prevention messages is the key ingredient to create change, so this will make a huge difference to the success of the SToP Trial and we thank Healthway for their valuable support.

“Working together in this way will help ensure Aboriginal communities and children have strong, healthy skin and significantly contribute to our goal of reducing the number of families affected by preventable diseases caused by skin infections.”

The SToP Trial team are visiting nine communities through the Kimberley region three times a year over the next three years, completing school health checks and training clinic staff to easily recognise and treat skin infections. Research findings will be presented to the communities involved after the study is completed in 2022.

Click here for more information about the work of the Telethon Kids Institute Skin Health team.