Data for health

Fiona Stanley

“As a child health researcher and advocate, there are many situations which make me anxious in Australia in 2014. Child abuse and neglect is apparently rising, as are substance abuse and mental health problems in both young people and their parents (probably linked) and the resulting irreversible fetal alcohol group of disorders. However, my overriding anxiety is one that is more likely to affect not only today’s children but those of the next generations for generations to come. It is climate change and its associated over-consumption, pollution and depletion of our planet’s resources and biodiversity. It is challenging our ability to survive successfully in our environment, and it is unlikely that we can reach a new equilibrium that will sustain us as it has in the past …”