Perioperative respiratory adverse events are significant causes of morbidity and mortality in paediatric anaesthesia representing a significant resource burden. The CHEETAH observational study is designed to establish the relationships between environmental exposures (air pollution, pollen), socioeconomic risk factors, and the risk of perioperative respiratory adverse events. Data are being collected from patients undergoing general anaesthesia at Perth Children’s Hospital in 2024. We anticipate the final dataset will exceed 9000 patients. This grant will allow the research team to undertake data analysis, including modelling of the associations between pollutant exposure levels and perioperative respiratory adverse event rates. Models will be compared based on model diagnostic tools, predictive ability, and clinical interpretability. In the case of high rates of missingness, appropriate imputation techniques will be used to mitigate the bias associated with analysis of complete case data. We will explore the feasibility of a secondary more complex analysis utilising spatial air quality modelling outputs to more accurately reveal relationships between pollutant exposure at home and perioperative adverse events. Increasing knowledge about the effects of environmental exposure and socioeconomic risk factors on the risk of perioperative respiratory adverse events could lead to clinical management changes which improve safety for children.
Associate Professor David Sommerfield, Dr Bojana Stepanovic, Perth Children’s Hospital, Western Australia; Ms Daisy Evans, The Kids Research Institute Australia, Western Australia; Dr Nazim Khan, University of Western Australia.
The project was awarded A$70,000 funding through the ANZCA research grants program for 2025.