Harnessing the health communication power of the early childhood sector

About the project

A multidisciplinary team of internationally recognised early childhood, health and Indigenous education researchers, in partnership with influential early childhood education and health organisations, was funded by the Medical Research Future Fund to undertake a research project exploring the experience of ECE services during the COVID-19 crisis.

The project, led by Professor Sheila Degotardi at Macquarie University, aims to capitalise on learning derived from the experience of the early childhood education sector during the COVID-19 crisis. It will ultimately develop a Best Practice Model of Health Communication to be used whenever population-level health information needs to be communicated rapidly, accurately and effectively to families of young children and their educators.

Dr Mary Dahm from ICH at ANU leads the analysis of health information documents for the project. Her team will analyse multimodal health communication data and records, including pandemic/disaster policy and communication guidelines produced by health and ECE peak organisations.