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Dr Charlie McLeod

Dr Charlie McLeod is a Deputy Head at the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, based at The Kids Research Institute Australia, and of a member of the Centre's Infectious Diseases Implementation Research (IDIR) team.

Charlie McLeod

Paediatric Infectious Diseases Clinician Researcher, Research Fellow, Raine Fellow, Deputy Head of the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases

MBBS (Hons), FRACP, PhD, DTM&H, DCH

charlie.mcleod@health.wa.gov.au

(08) 6456 2222 (via PCH switch)

Dr Charlie McLeod is an Infectious Diseases Paediatrician, Year 1 post-doctoral researcher and recent recipient of a RAINE clinical research fellowship (2021-24) with emergent expertise in patient-centred research and novel clinical trial methodology.

Dr McLeod is a Deputy Head at the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, based at The Kids Research Institute Australia, and of a member of the Centre's Infectious Diseases Implementation Research (IDIR) team. IDIR forms part of the Adaptive Health Intelligence (AHI) collaboration, which includes the Health and Clinical Analytics unit at the University of Sydney. AHI supports the design and implementation of embedded clinical trials using innovative trial methodologies and analytical approaches to create ‘learning health systems’ to simultaneously generate and translate high-quality evidence to inform practice and policy.

Dr McLeod is also an elected representative of the Scientific and Safety Committee at the Child and Adolescent Health Service HREC.

Projects

Healthy Ears Clinical Trial: A telehealth-facilitated randomised-controlled trial utilising a health promotion intervention to resolve otitis media with effusion for children won specialist Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) waiting lists

A telehealth-facilitated randomised-controlled trial utilising a health promotion intervention to resolve otitis media with effusion for children won specialist Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) waiting lists

Patient-Reported Outcome Measures for Acute Lower Respiratory Infection (ALRI-PRO): Developing and Establishing Content Validity

Patient (or parent/carer proxy) Reported Outcomes (PROs) are those reported from a patient perspective, capturing how they feel, function, or survive.

Published research

Statistical considerations for the platform trial in COVID-19 vaccine priming and boosting

The Platform trial In COVID-19 priming and BOOsting (PICOBOO) is a multi-site, adaptive platform trial designed to generate evidence of the immunogenicity, reactogenicity, and cross-protection of different booster vaccination strategies against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and its variants, specific for the Australian context.

Evaluation of Pediatric HIV Postexposure Prophylaxis Guideline Following Child Sexual Assault in Western Australia

HIV postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) following child sexual assault (CSA) is recommended in select cases. High rates of poor adherence to PEP are reported. We evaluated adherence to the recommended management of children following CSA at the tertiary pediatric facility in Western Australia and compared our approach with international guidelines.

SMS-based interventions for improving child and adolescent vaccine coverage and timeliness: a systematic review

The aim of this review was to investigate the impact of short message service (SMS)-based interventions on childhood and adolescent vaccine coverage and timeliness. 

Core protocol for the adaptive Platform Trial In COVID-19 Vaccine priming and BOOsting (PICOBOO)

The need for coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination in different age groups and populations is a subject of great uncertainty and an ongoing global debate. Critical knowledge gaps regarding COVID-19 vaccination include the duration of protection offered by different priming and booster vaccination regimens in different populations, including homologous or heterologous schedules.

BEAT CF pulmonary exacerbations core protocol for evaluating the management of pulmonary exacerbations in people with cystic fibrosis

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a rare, inherited, life-limiting condition predominantly affecting the lungs, for which there is no cure. The disease is characterized by recurrent pulmonary exacerbations (PEx), which are thought to drive progressive lung damage. Management of these episodes is complex and generally involves multiple interventions targeting different aspects of disease. The emergence of innovative trials and use of Bayesian statistical methods has created renewed opportunities for studying heterogeneous populations in rare diseases.

among children with pneumonia using a causal Bayesian network

Pneumonia remains a leading cause of hospitalization and death among young children worldwide, and the diagnostic challenge of differentiating bacterial from non-bacterial pneumonia is the main driver of antibiotic use for treating pneumonia in children. Causal Bayesian networks (BNs) serve as powerful tools for this problem as they provide clear maps of probabilistic relationships between variables and produce results in an explainable way by incorporating both domain expert knowledge and numerical data.

Patient-reported outcome measures for paediatric acute lower respiratory infection studies

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are recommended for capturing meaningful outcomes in clinical trials. The use of PROMs for children with acute lower respiratory infections (ALRIs) has not been systematically reported. We aimed to identify and characterise patient-reported outcomes and PROMs used in paediatric ALRI studies and summarise their measurement properties.

Protocol for establishing a core outcome set for evaluation in studies of pulmonary exacerbations in people with cystic fibrosis

Pulmonary exacerbations are associated with increased morbidity and mortality in people with cystic fibrosis (CF). There is no consensus about which outcomes should be evaluated in studies of pulmonary exacerbations or how these outcomes should be measured.

Education and Qualifications
  • Phd – ‘Improving the Methodology for PAtient-Centred Trials in Cystic Fibrosis (IMPACT-CF),’ 2022
  • FRACP (2018) – General Paediatrics and Infectious Diseases
  • Diploma of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (DTM&H), Liverpool University, 2011
  • Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (Honours), University of Western Australia, 1998-2004
  • Epidemiology (PUBH 4403), University of Western Australia, 2017
  • Biostatistics 1 & 2, University of Western Australia, 2016 & 2018
Awards/Honours
  1. Robert Street Award: Top PhD student University of Western Australia, 2022.
  2. PhD Dean’s list: Top 5%: Improving the Methodology of PAatient-Centred Trials in CF
  3. RAINE Fellow (2022-2024)
  4. Best presentation: Improving the Methodology of PAatient-Centred Trials in CF. Australian clinical trials alliance. Sydney, 09/2019. Snelling T (presented in McLeod C’s absence; data and presentation provided by McLeod).
Active Collaborations
  • Vaccine Trials Group, WCVID
  • Ear Health team, WCVID
  • CONNECT team
Projects
  1. PICOBOO - The Platform Trial ICOVID-19 Vaccine BOOsting (PICOBOO) Study designed to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of COVID-19 booster vaccines.
  2. BEAT-CF - optimise the medical management of cystic fibrosis lung exacerbations 
  3. Decision aid supports
    1. Osteoarticular infections
    2. Lower respiratory tract infections