The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health in conversation with

Ableism is a type of discriminatory bias, like racism and sexism for example, that speaks particularly to the idea that there is one standard human norm that exists and any ways of being human that don't meet this standard are considered inferior. In this episode with neonatologist and developmental paediatrician Dr Paige Church we discuss the presence of ableism in paediatrics, and child and adolescent health at large. We consider how, despite the best intentions of paediatricians and other practitioners, we quickly assign value judgements and assume an inherently less meaningful life for children with disabilities or differences that do not meet normative standards or expected developmental milestones. 

Dr Church share's her own journey of reckoning with the invisible bias of ableism in her clinical practice in counselling parents in the NICU, shares tangible examples of how ableism plays out in neonatal and paediatric clinical care, and we discuss how children and families with disability often face multiple intersecting discriminatory biases-along race, gender, socioeconomic, neuro-normative and other lines-leading to a concentration of marginalisation and othering. Dr Church shares practical individual mindset and language shifts we can all make, that are of no cost to the healthcare system, to start to overcome ableist biases and support children, young people and their families to reach their unique optimal developmental potential.

Click here to read the full article: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00222-6/fulltext

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Dr Rachel Reid-McCann (University of Oxford, Oxford, UK) speaks with Acting Editor-in-Chief Ali Landman about her recent paper "Longitudinal association between dysmenorrhoea in adolescence and chronic pain in adulthood: a UK population-based study".

Read the full article:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00213-5/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_October_25_lanchi

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Dr Zulfiqar Bhutta, Georgia Dominguez, and Naeha Sharma join acting Editor-in-Chief Ali Landman to discuss their Health Policy paper "Who protects the children and women of Sudan?", analysing the scale and severity of the grave violations of war against children and women in Sudan and proposing immediate and long-term strategic actions to respond to the humanitarian crisis and ensure long-term recovery and accountability.

Read the Health Policy paper:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00237-8/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_September_25_lanchi

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Paediatric-onset multiple sclerosis before the age of 18 years, although uncommon, is associated with a higher disease burden than adult onset MS, early and progressive motor and cognitive disability, and high levels of depression and fatigue. In this episode Ann Yeh, Professor of Paediatrics and neurologist in Toronto, Canada, highlights the global considerations in preventing MS disease progression in young people with MS, including achieving global equity in access to diagnostics, specialist services, and highly-effective disease modifying therapies for adolescents and young adults with MS.

Read the Review in this month's issue here:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00133-6/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_August_25_lanchi

Disease-modifying therapies in managing disability worsening in paediatric-onset multiple sclerosis: a longitudinal analysis of global and national registries https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(24)00047-6/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_August_25_lanchi

Real-life benefits of high-efficacy therapies for children with multiple sclerosis https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(24)00074-9/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_August_25_lanchi

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June 25, 2025, saw the publication of The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health Commission on the future of neonatology. The product of 3 years of dedicated international and interdisciplinary collaboration, the Commission builds on perspectives and experiences of clinical professionals who provide specialised care for neonates and are driven to develop evidence-based and equitable neonatal medicine that better serves newborn babies. 

In this episode, Deputy Editor Josefine Gibson speaks to three commissioners about advancing neonatal medicine and the importance of interdisciplinary, inclusive research that centres on the health rights and care needs of newborn children to improve their health and wellbeing through childhood.

Read the Commission here:

https://www.thelancet.com/commissions-do/future-neonatology?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_lanchineonatalrd25_lanchi

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Autism and ADHD continue to be the subjects of much debate and misunderstanding and until 2013 diagnostic manuals did not allow for the co-occurrence of autism and ADHD. 

In this episode Thora Halldórsdóttir and Kristín Sigurdardottir, clinical psychologists and researchers from Iceland, join us to talk about the key findings from the study they led in Iceland that provides the first nationwide, population-based estimate of incidence and prevalence of autism, ADHD, and co-occurring autism-ADHD in young people without intellectual impairment between 2013 and 2021 assessed using gold-standard clinical methods. 

They highlight that autism more often occurs in combination with ADHD than without, that the prevalence of co-occurring psychiatric conditions is high but not universal, and that the sex differences are not as large as previously thought.

Read the full article here:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00132-4/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_Jun_25_lanchi

Other articles mentioned in this discussion:

Improving autism identification and support for individuals assigned female at birth: clinical suggestions and research priorities https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(23)00221-3/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_Jun_25_lanchi

Evidence-based kindness and empathy for autistic children https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(24)00080-4/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_Jun_25_lanchi

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Mpox continues to spread in Africa and young children are experiencing the highest mpox burden and mortality of all ages. 

In this episode Kyeng Mercy, epidemiologist at Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention takes us through the continental response to mpox, the Africa CDC data on mpox in children younger than 15 years, and African priorities in response to the mpox public health emergency. 

Alongside her, Nuria Sanchez Clemente, paediatric infectious disease specialist at City St George's, University of London shares what paediatricians and clinicians need to know about how mpox presents and the latest information on mpox vaccine and therapeutic trials.

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Dr Anna Giolito and Professor Naïm Ouldali join Josefine Gibson to discuss their latest research on dexamethasone for paediatric pneumococcal meningitis.

Read the full article:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00029-X/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_generic_lanchi

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Deborah Fry from Childlight – Global Child Safety Institute talks with Amy Slogrove about the first global prevalence study of Online Childhood Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.

Read the full article here:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(24)00329-8/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_generic_lanchi

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Kathy Pritchard-Jones (University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, UK) joins Ali Landman in conversation about tumour staging in childhood cancer, international standardisation of health data collection, and how to improve childhood cancer survival.

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