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Language is significant for communicating knowledge across cultures and generations and has the power to attribute meanings and alter our worldviews.

Acute rheumatic fever is an autoimmune disorder resulting from Group A Streptococcus pharyngitis or impetigo in children and adolescents, which may evolve to rheumatic heart disease (RHD) with persistent cardiac valve damage. RHD causes substantial mortality and morbidity globally, predominantly among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, with an interplay of social determinants of health and genetic factors determining overall risk.

The STARFISH (STopping Acute Rheumatic Fever Infections to Strengthen Health) program, funded by the NHMRC Synergy Grant, investigates the most effective environmental health initiatives (EHIs) to reduce Strep A infections and prevent ARF.

Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream (SAB) infection is a common and severe infectious disease, with a 90-day mortality of 15%-30%. Despite this, <3000 people have been randomized into clinical trials of treatments for SAB infection.

Recruitment in research can be challenging in Australian Aboriginal contexts. We aimed to evaluate the SToP (See, Treat, Prevent skin infections) trial recruitment approach for Aboriginal families to identify barriers and facilitators and understand the utility of the visual resource used.

A high burden of bacterial skin infections is well documented in remote-living Indigenous children and young people in high-income countries.

Impetigo or skin sores are estimated to affect >162 million people worldwide. Detailed descriptions of the anatomical location of skin sores are lacking.

Achieving healthy skin requires the prevention of infectious diseases that affect the skin. Prevention activities range from environmental health improvements to address inequities in living situations, through to community-wide treatment programs to reduce transmission and improve skin health.

Invasive group A streptococcal (Strep A) infections occur when Streptococcus pyogenes, also known as beta-hemolytic group A Streptococcus, invades a normally sterile site in the body. This article provides guidelines for establishing surveillance for invasive Strep A infections. The primary objective of invasive Strep A surveillance is to monitor trends in rates of infection and determine the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with laboratory-confirmed invasive Strep A infection, the age- and sex-specific incidence in the population of a defined geographic area, trends in risk factors, and the mortality rates and rates of nonfatal sequelae caused by invasive Strep A infections.

Vaccine development and implementation decisions need to be guided by accurate and robust burden of disease data. We developed an innovative systematic framework outlining the properties of such data that are needed to advance vaccine development and evaluation, and prioritize research and surveillance activities.