Harriet Hiscock

professor harriet hiscock is a consultant paediatrician and fellow of the australian academy of health and medical sciences. she is associate director, research at the centre for community child health, director of the royal children's hospital health services research unit and group leader, health services at murdoch children's research institute.

professor hiscock’s research focuses on developing, testing and implementing new approaches to (i) keep children out of hospital; (ii) reduce low-value (wasteful) care; and (iii) integrate health, social and education services to improve health and wellbeing for children, including those living with family adversity.

she has published over 290 peer reviewed papers and has been awarded continuous national health and medical research council (nhmrc) funding since 2002 including a current cre in childhood adversity and mental health, as cia. she is assisted by a team of around 20 multi-disciplinary students and researchers. professor hiscock was awarded nhmrc's "10 of the best research projects 2023" for her groundbreaking trials in sleep in children with adhd and with autism.

professor hiscock has a strong focus on translation beyond traditional methods. her work includes an infant sleep e-learning package for professionals, murdoch children’s research institute sleep podcast, a sleep app designed to help parents manage common child behaviour problems and rollout of her infant sleep program to 1,200 victorian maternal and child health nurses, for which she was awarded the 2010 early years minister's award for partnerships with families and communities.

her work informs the content of the federal government-funded raising children network parenting site. she has co-authored a report which led to the inclusion of a child mental health measure in the victorian school entry health questionnaire that enables earlier detection and management of child mental health problems. professor hiscock was also a key contributor to the decode mental health and wellbeing program which is designed to improve mental health literacy for students and teachers in australia.