Associate Professor Jasneek Chawla is trying to improve access to high quality sleep health care for all children and their families. Specifically, her work focuses on high-risk populations including children with disability and children from First Nations communities. There is significant inequity in the provision of sleep health care for these children and importantly, often little support provided to their families who also suffer from the debilitating effects of sleep deprivation alongside their child. Currently there are NO clinical guidelines to support evaluation and management of sleep problems in children with disability in Australia or Worldwide. Associate Professor Chawla’s work aims to address this major gap in paediatric sleep health care delivery and by doing so, to improve the functional outcomes and quality of life for this population of children and their families.
In all her research Associate Professor Chawla has engaged with children, families and key stakeholders from project inception through to delivery, using unique methods to amplify patient voice and novel approaches to respond to their needs. Examples of this include:
1) Co-production of the first tailored behavioural sleep intervention for children with neurodisability consulting with a consumer advisory group and a diverse range of allied health and medical professionals (now under evaluation in a multi-centre randomised controlled trial)
2) Comprehensive evaluation of the feasibility, acceptability and diagnostic accuracy of a novel sleep mat, the Sonomat, which provides a contactless option for diagnosing sleep disordered breathing in children with disability- evaluated in over 200 children (now progressing to clinical translation partnering with Emeritus Professor Colin Sullivan, developer of the CPAP device).
3) Unique collaboration with consumers to co-design creative engagement methods (craftwork, games, poetry, short films, 3-D installations) to understand the experiences and research priorities for children with disability and their families (Families in Focus)