Ana Antunes, researcher from the Comprehensive Health Research Center (CHRC), a research unit from CEDOC-NMS and from the Lisbon Institute of Global Mental Health, won the award “Pulido Valente Ciência 2019” with her article entitled “Changes in socioeconomic position among individuals with mental disorders during the economic recession in Portugal: a follow-up of the National Mental Health Survey”.
The research work of Ana Antunes distinguished with this award, published in in the journal Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, compared changes in socioeconomic position among people with and without mental disorders during the period of economic recession in Portugal.
The results showed that participants with any mental disorder in the beginning of the economic recession had two times higher odds of reporting financial hardship than those without any disorder. Overall, this research suggested the impact of the economic recession on the widening of social inequalities in mental health across the Portuguese population.
This study was conducted under the scope of Ana Antunes’ PhD in Global Public Health, supervised by Professor José Miguel Caldas de Almeida and co-author of the paper, which also had the contribution of Diana Frasquilho, Sofia Azeredo-Lopes, Manuela Silva and Graça Cardoso.