Since its beginning, Health Mela has been empowering the communities for nearly two decades now.

Inspired by its appeal, one of the Health Olympics volunteers Dr Joseph Watson decided to use it to study it to assess ‘whether Health Melas are able to identify undiagnosed cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in hard-to-reach communities and encourage individuals to make lifestyle changes.

His research paper Empowering local communities to make lifestyle changes: is the Health Mela a potential solution?’ has now  been published in the prestigious BMJ NUTRITION, PREVENTION & HEALTH journal. The article may be accessed at https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/early/2020/07/20/bmjnph-2020-000067

We are very proud of this achievement and congratulate all the contributors.

Joe was the Health Olympics Student President from 2015-2016, helping to coordinate student volunteers for the Health Melas. During this time he completed a research project evaluating the Health Melas which has now been published by the British Medical Journal of Nutrition, Prevention & Health. Joe is currently working as a Critical Care junior doctor at the Royal Liverpool Hospital and continues to have a strong interest in empowering people to make lifestyle changes.