Dr Helen Kelsall receives the 2014 Australasian Military Medicine Association (AMMA) Patron's Prize

Dr Helen Kelsall from The School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, was recently awarded the 2014 Australasian Military Medicine Association (AMMA) Patron's Prize at the 2014 AMMA Annual Scientific Conference.

The AMMA Patron's Prize is awarded by the Association's Patron, Air Vice Marshal, Dr Hugh Bartholomeusz, Surgeon General Defence Force Reserves, for the best paper written by a Member of the Association published in a peer review journal during each financial year.

It was awarded for the paper Kelsall HL, McKenzie DP, Forbes AB, Roberts MH, Urquhart D, Sim
MR. Pain-related musculoskeletal disorders, psychological comorbidity, and the relationship with physical and mental well-being in Gulf War veterans. PAIN 2014; 155:685-692.

The analysis that formed the basis for this paper was funded by a Defence Health Foundation Grant for Medical Research - Booster Grant in 2011-12 and the research was based on data from the Australian Gulf War Veterans' Health Study 2000-2002, funded by the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Veterans’ health and the relationship between physical, psychological and social health and wellbeing and deployment is a key area of research interest in the Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health (MonCOEH). The paper that was awarded the AMMA Patron’s Prize had considered two health outcomes with considerable morbidity in the military and veteran population, musculoskeletal disorders and psychological disorders.