Managing illness, infection and immunity in the community

For the ‘In the community’ stage of the ‘Kids, Bugs and Drugs’ study, we’re looking to speak with community stakeholders to better understand how illness, infection and immunity are understood and managed in their day-to-day professional working lives. Giving vaccinations and treating colds and flus are the bread and butter of many GPs, but lots of other community stakeholders are involved in managing illness day-to-day as well. From childcare workers dealing with sick kids each day, to community health nurses fielding questions about when and how best to vaccinate babies, to GPs dispensing antibiotics and/or alternatives to manage illness, a wide range of professionals also play a hand in managing the microbial world in everyday life.

To better understand these diverse stakeholders’ perspectives, we’re holding focus-group discussions with a range of community education, health and care professionals including early childhood educators (including family daycare), K-12 teachers, early childhood nurses (who staff community health centres), and community pharmacists. We’re interested in learning more about how people manage the competing demands they face in their daily working lives – between caring for other people’s illnesses and keeping well themselves, between ‘best practice’ and ‘actual practice’ in everyday experiences, the consumer pressures, and professional demands they face and how they make sense of what is best amongst all these different priorities.

Sign up

Participant FAQs

  • This project involves interviews and focus groups with carers of young children, university students, early childhood educators, physicians and pharmacists to better understand how illness, infection and immunity are understood and managed, day-to-day by families and communities.

    Continue reading below, or to jump ahead and sign up, click here.

  • Yes, your participation is completely voluntary.

  • This study is being carried out by researchers from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) at the University of Sydney as a part of an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA).

    For more information about the research team, see ‘Our team’.

  • If you are an early childhood educator, teacher, community health nurse (or similar) or a pharmacist you can participate in this research.

    We want to speak to a broad range of stakeholders to gain a variety of perspectives across sectors. We are interested in the challenges stakeholders face in managing illness, infection and immunity – and the place of antibiotics, if relevant, therein – in their professional working life.

    If you know someone who might be suitable for this study you are welcome to pass this information on.

  • If you decide to take part in this study, you will be asked to participate in an individual interview and/or focus group discussion.

    Interviews of 30-60 minutes will be conducted face-to-face or virtually via zoom at a time and place of your choosing. All the information you provide in the interview will be treated confidentially. Your name and any identifying characteristics will be removed from transcribed data and will be replaced with a participant ID number.

    Focus groups of 45-60 minutes will be scheduled across a number of different days and timeslots to maximise potential participation. Face-to-face and virtual opportunities will be made available. Focus group sessions will be digitally video-recorded to enable accurate attributions of transcribed audio data. Your name and identifying characteristics will be removed from the transcripts and replaced with a participant ID number.

    Interviews and focus groups will cover your training and professional experience, and how you manage illness, infection and immunity in your professional working life, what challenges you face (especially around the difficulties of caring for sick kids and about community/carer demand for antibiotics), how you navigate conversations about vaccines and immunity and your reflections on our evolving relationship to the microbial world.

  • Yes, all the information you provide in the interview or focus group will be treated confidentially. Your name and any identifying characteristics will be removed from the transcribed data and will be replaced with a participant ID number.

    Written consent will be gained prior to your participation. All data generated by the project will be protected- recordings and transcripts will be kept on a password protected secure server at the University of Sydney and will only be made available to project investigators. You will not be identified in any publications or presentations that result from the study.

  • Yes, you may withdraw at any point of time up until results from the study have been published. Your decision will not affect your current or future relationship with the researchers, or anyone else at the University of Sydney or beyond.

  • No. If you take part in an interview you may decline to answer any questions that you do not wish to answer.

    Focus groups participation is also entirely voluntary. You do not have to answer particular questions or participate in part of the conversation that you do not want to.

  • Participation in the study itself presents no additional risk to participants beyond those of their everyday lives.

    Aside from the time-commitment of participation, we do not expect that there will be any risks or costs associated with taking part in this study.

  • Yes, each participant will receive an AUD$50 gift card as an acknowledgement of and thanks for their participation.

    Although there is no intended direct benefit for participants, we believe that the results could help enhance education and heath and care service provision in the future.

  • By providing your consent, you are agreeing to us collecting the information you share in interview and/or focus group discussion for the purposes of this study. We are planning for the study findings to be published and thus made public, but you will not be individually identifiable in these outputs.

    Interviews will be audio recorded and transcribed. Focus groups will be audio and video recorded. All audio will be transcribed and then kept on a password protected, secure server, in a de-identified form. Video recordings will be used for the sole purpose of ensuring attribution of focus group contributions to the correct speaker. Once transcribed, video recording will be permanently deleted.

    Transcripts will be used so that the researchers have access to a detailed record of the conversations, and closely analysed for emerging themes and ideas. Transcripts will only be accessible to the core members of the research team and will not be released except with your permission, unless this is required by law.

  • Findings from the study will be published in scholarly and general-readership destinations, They will be made accessible insofar as copyright permits through the project website- kidsbugsanddrugs.org

  • The ethical aspects of this study have been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) of the University of Sydney [2023/390] according to the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007).

    If you are concerned about the way this study is being conducted or you wish to make a complaint to someone independent from the study, please contact the university’s Human Ethics Manager- human.ethics@sydney.edu.au | +61 2 8627 8176

  • Yes! Please feel free to download the Participant information and Consent Form here or email kidsbugsanddrugs@gmail.com to request one.