From Wicked Problems to Incisive Solutions: Fast-tracking Innovative Pediatric Interventions and Policy in an Era of Complexity

Chair(s)

• 

  Jonathan Huang, PhD, MPH (he/him/his)

  Assistant Professor
  University of Hawaii at Manoa
  Honolulu, Hawaii, United States

Join us for a groundbreaking plenary on accelerating population approaches to children’s health and wellbeing interventions and reducing disparities.

You will gain insights into how novel designs and computational strategies are revolutionizing trials and observational studies to create actionable, intervention- and policy-oriented research. Don't miss this opportunity to engage with leading experts tackling pediatric health’s most “wicked” problems.

Population pediatric health faces unique challenges: from the complexity of translating basic discovery into actionable insights; to the transportability of community-or clinic-based study findings to diverse, real-world systems; to time lag and efficacy limitations of population-based, longitudinal cohort studies.

This international, Hawai`i-led panel will showcase cutting-edge, multi-level, trans-disciplinary approaches to overcoming these obstacles, with child obesity as a unifying theme. You’ll hear about:

1. Introduction: Overview of challenges in evidence-informed pediatric interventions and the target trial framework (Assistant Professor Jonathan Huang)
2. Integrating environmental, gene expression, and computational modeling to identify modifiable pathways in early life programming across diverse populations (Assistant Professor Arjun Bhattacharya)
3. Community Based System Dynamics to project multi-level intervention effects in a multijurisdictional trial aimed at reducing child overweight and obesity in the US-affiliated Pacific: The Children's Healthy Living trial. (Professor Rachel Novotny)
4. A cell-to-society mega-cohort of children and parents deeply embedded in an entire Australian state enabling rapid, cost-effective community and clinical trials: Generation Victoria (GenV). (Professor Melissa Wake)
5. A global preconception, whole-of-childhood trial using technology-based solutions to improve pregnancy and child outcomes: The Canadian arm of Healthy Early Life Trajectories (HELTi). (Professor Catherine Birken)

Presentations:

• 11:00am – 11:05am HST

  Introduction
  

  Speaker: Jonathan Y. Huang, PhD, MPH (he/him/his) – University of Hawaii at Manoa
• 11:05am – 11:25am HST

  How Mega-cohorts Can Enable Rapid, Cost-effective Population Trials: Generation Victoria (GenV)
  

  Speaker: Melissa Wake, MD (she/her/hers) – Murdoch Children’s Research Institute
• 11:25am – 11:45am HST

  Global Preconception, Whole-of-childhood Trials Improving Pregnancy & Child Outcomes: Healthy Early Life Trajectories (HELTi)
  

  Speaker: Catherine S. Birken, MD, MSc, FRCPC (she/her/hers) – Sickkids
• 11:45am – 12:05pm HST

  Sustainably Reducing Child Overweight and Obesity in the Us-affiliated Pacific: The Children's Healthy Living Trial
  

  Speaker: Rachel Novotny, PhD – University of Hawaii
• 12:05pm – 12:25pm HST

  Integrating Environment, Gene Expression, & Computational Models to Identify Modifiable Pathways Across Diverse Populations
  

  Speaker: Arjun Bhattacharya, Ph.D. (he/him/his) – University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
• 12:25pm – 12:30pm HST

  Q & A