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Health surveillance is the foundation for preventive activity in children and young people. This involves working with parents, nurses and others in the community to maintain awareness of risk and protective factors that affect family and child wellbeing. The parent held child health record has been demonstrated to improve health surveillance. There is a lack of evidence for the effectiveness of interventions in clinical practice to reduce childhood obesity and GPs may underestimate the prevalence of paediatric overweight in their practice. Screening Consensus guidelines recommend newborn screening and examination. - Child health surveillance should be conducted at 2, 4, 6, 12 and 18 months of age.
- Breastfeeding exclusively to 6 months of age should be promoted. Ongoing assessment of growth, hearing, vision, language, development and social skills should be undertaken in collaboration with parents.
- Preventive advice should be given to school aged children opportunistically. Consider social conflict or violence at home or school when difficult behaviours/emotional problems emerge. School bullying is common, influences lifelong wellbeing, and parents are often unaware that it is occurring.
- Many young people find it difficult to access health care in general practice and once there, to raise important health issues with the doctor.125 General practitioners often find providing optimal care for young people challenging. Many young people with chronic illness or disability have difficulty negotiating the transition from tertiary paediatric care to the adult health care system.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 June 2010 17:35 )
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