Fast facts to help explain GenV

Whilst GenV has engaged with all Victorian maternity hospitals—as this is where participants were first invited to join via a GenV staff visit shortly after birth—health professionals supporting families may still be asked for more information on GenV.

GenV will provide health professionals in and outside of hospitals (including GPs) with information to refer to if the need arises. While we hope you will support GenV, we do not expect you to be experts in GenV.

Fast facts to help explain GenV

Aside from printed resources and information found on this website, here are some key points that you may find useful in explaining GenV:

• GenV is a whole-state health and wellbeing project. It’s creating a picture of the health and wellbeing of an entire generation. It will help understand the challenges children and parents face today, like allergies, asthma, obesity and anxiety. GenV aims for new ways to treat, predict and even prevent many conditions.
• GenV aims to be as low burden on families as possible. If GenV missed a family in hospital, we try to contact them later by text, email, phone or mail. To talk through all the important information about what taking part involved; and answer any remaining questions that families have, before inviting them to join us.
• It is completely up to parents, whether or not they want to be involved. But the more families that take part, the more we can learn and the more solutions we can find. GenV is open to every parent across Victoria (that had a baby between Oct-4 2021 and Oct-3 2023), regardless of where they are from or what language they speak.
• After consenting to join GenV, we would like to contact families a few times a year to check in on the health and development of their child and their own well-being. While we hope for the most complete picture possible, parents can opt out of any follow-up or withdraw from GenV if and when they choose. 
• Much of the information that GenV needs from families is already collected by various services. Their consent gives us permission to join together existing data and biosamples from various sources to build a more complete picture of children and their families. 
• Information we have on families is stored in secure, purpose-built data systems that undergo regular security testing. GenV also protects participants’ privacy by removing personal information, like their name and contact details, from the research information that is used by approved researchers. Anyone accessing data has to pass a stringent review process to make sure data is secure and that their work is to the benefit of similar participants or families. 
• GenV isn’t a typical study or research project. Its focus is not just on understanding but on better, faster solutions. These solutions will help prevent, predict and treat problems for all children and adults, now and tomorrow. 
• Parents will receive prenatal information packs giving them the opportunity to read about GenV, and be directed to the GenV website to answer more questions. Beyond that, we welcome parents to contact us directly with any questions they have. 
• GenV is run from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute at The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. It has been developed by senior clinicians and researchers from across Australia, with support from the Victorian Government. 

We hope you support GenV and talk to your patients about the universal benefits that come from their participation. If you—or your patients—still have questions that cannot be answered by this website, please contact us.

Where to find more information

More information—helpful both for parents and health professionals engaged with, or interested in, GenV—can be found in the For Parents section, and throughout our website.