Congratulations to HDA & CRF PhD Excellence Awardee - Yohannes Efa
Congratulations to Yohannes Efa one of our Healthy Development Adelaide (HDA) and Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation (CRF) PhD Excellence Award winners for 2024.
We thank the CRF for its ongoing financial support of the PhD Excellence Award and its partnership of 17 years helping HDA to foster research excellence and career development in South Australia. This is our 13th cohort and our two winners will each receive $5,000 per annum for 3 years to augment their scholarships.
Yohannes Efa is a PhD candidate within the Cancer Epidemiology and Population Health group in Allied Health and Human Performance at the University of South Australia.
Yohannes’s research project focusses on ‘The impact of lifestyle factors on mental health outcomes of adolescents’.
This project considers factors like diet, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, alcohol, and tobacco use, as well as household, family, and country-level factors during the investigation. The study utilizes the Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) data, which covers over 98 countries from various regions and socioeconomic backgrounds. This allows for cross-country comparisons and exploration of the influence of environmental factors. Ultimately, this research project will contribute to the existing knowledge on promoting healthy development during adolescence and the transition to adulthood.
This project is supervised by Dr Ming Li, Senior Research Fellow at the Cancer Epidemiology and Population Health Research group at the University of South Australia. Co-supervisors include Professor David Roder, Research Chair of Cancer Epidemiology and Population Health, University of South Australia and a Senior Principal Research Fellow at SAHMRI; and Professor Zumin Shi, Professor of Nutrition at Qatar University.
“I am grateful to HDA for considering my application and honoured to receive the HDA and Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation PhD Excellence award 2024. With this award, I can add to the understanding of the impact of lifestyle and environmental factors on the mental health related outcomes in adolescents, in addition, I can benefit from the training opportunity to build up my career pathway by liaison with HDA members and industrial partners,” Yohannes.