April 2020
As the situation in Australia continues to change rapidly due to COVID19, the National Allergy Strategy is continuing to progress our work where possible.
The National Allergy Strategy, like many organisations, has uploaded a link to the COVID19 symptom checker developed by HealthDirect.
Food allergy prevention project (Nip allergies in the Bub)
We have recently added a summary of the Learning Early About Peanut allergy (LEAP) study to the Nip allergies in the Bub website so that parents can understand the research behind many of the changes in infant feeding recommendations.
We are developing additional new practical information about how to feed the common allergy causing foods to babies. Parents and carers will be able to download and print this information.
Information to help guide parents about how to feed their babies and how to optimise eczema management to help prevent food allergy will also be promoted through the Mamamia site.
Parents, carers and health professionals are still able to have their enquires answered via email or the toll free phone number: www.preventallergies.org.au/more-information/
To visit the Nip allergies in the Bub website, go to: www.preventallergies.org.au
250K youth project
In March 2020 we released a new camp section on the 250K school aged teens website, which features a camp promotional video (click here to go to the camp section featuring the camp video). We have also created new sections for our Yarramundi and Merrick’s Lodge camps which include photo, recipe and video galleries.
Unfortunately, we have had to postpone our peer mentor training camp planned for July 2020. However, we continue to engage with our peer mentors via email, chat forums and zoom video conferencing. We are planning to conduct peer mentor training sessions via video conference commencing in May 2020. Our peer mentors continue to engage with the younger teens via chat forums.
A recent chat forum for school aged teens was well received. Participants were keen to connect with us again and we have a follow-up session planned for late April.
A chat forum for young people aged 18-25 years of age – the young adults who represent the older age group of our 250K youth project – has also been planned for April.
We are progressing with the second stage of our quality of life survey completed by those who attended the Merricks Lodge camp and look forward to seeing the results in the coming months.
Finally, we are developing some new video animations for both 250K websites (school aged teens and young adults).
To visit the 250K website, go to: www.250K.org.au
Food allergy management in food service project
New video resources have been developed by the National Allergy Strategy to help parents, carers and people with allergies to select, prepare and store food safely. A series of short videos have been created to provide practical information to help manage food allergy in the home. Click here to access the video series.
The National Allergy Strategy has recently updated the food allergy management in hospitals and healthcare resources. Click here to access the updated resources. We are progressing with the development of the food allergy management in hospitals e-training course. This course has been delayed due to COVID19 and is now likely to be completed by September 2020.
To access the National Allergy Strategy food allergy aware resource hub, go to: www.foodallergyaware.org.au
My Health Record allergy project
We continue to progress this project to encourage clinical immunology/allergy specialists and consumers to utilise My Health Record and ensure that allergy and adverse reaction information is accurate and up to date. The benefits of My Health Record for consumers with allergic disease are being communicated via email newsletters and fact sheets. Further resources that support health professional use of My Health Record continue to be developed as part of this project. To access current resources or find out more about this project, go to: https://nationalallergystrategy.org.au/projects/australian-digital-health-agency