Atlas award for Western

The ground-breaking work of an international team of physical activity researchers, including Dr Joseph Firth from the NICM Health Research Institute, has been recognised by one of the world’s leading publishers for work that will “significantly impact people's lives around the world”.

An advisory board at Elsevier selects just one research article each month as a recipient of its Atlas Award. In October, a research paper co-authored by Dr Firth on the relationships between sedentary behaviour and depression in low-income countries was selected as the recipient of ‘The Atlas’.

“Elsevier publishes thousands of articles a month, and only one of these articles, identified as particularly important and impactful from around the globe, is chosen for the monthly award, so we are very happy to have our research recognised at this level,” said Dr Firth.

“There has been substantive research on the relationship between movement and mental health in developed countries, such as the US and Australia, but there has been a real neglect of work that looks at the impact of obesity and depression in countries at the other end of the scale. This paper is part of our ongoing body of work beginning to address these issues”

Other than physical activity, Dr Firth’s research interests also include nutritional interventions for mental health, and investigating how digital technologies can be harnessed to facilitate and improve psychiatric care and the impact of exercise in young people with mental illness.

ENDS

31 October, 2018

Media Unit