Dr Lauren Ha

Lauren Ha is a current PhD candidate at the School of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, and Kids Cancer Centre at the Sydney Children’s Hospital. Her research focuses on improving physical activity levels and healthy behaviours in childhood cancer survivors through distance-delivered health and education. Alongside her research role, she is also an Accredited Exercise Physiologist and works clinically at the UNSW Fatigue Clinic, an integrated centre of research and clinical services focused on improving the health of people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, post-cancer fatigue or post-viral fatigue.

The Exercise Intolerance Study is a retrospective cohort project and collaboration between ACOR and UNSW, Sydney that aims to establish childhood cancer survivors’ exercise intolerance using cardiorespiratory exercise testing (CPET) and identify whether other cardiorespiratory abnormalities are related to treatment therapies or clinical characteristics. Testing exercise intolerance using CPET can assist in identifying potential mechanisms responsible for impaired cardiorespiratory fitness in childhood cancer survivors, which will potentially move the field closer to reducing the burden of cardiovascular disease experienced by this population.