Awards

Following the outstanding success of HDHK, the program has been widely acclaimed and recognised with prestigious national and international awards in public health for its innovation and demonstrated benefits for communities. Indeed, HDHK won two major national awards in 2014 for excellence in obesity prevention and also community engagement.

External recognition via prestigious national/international awards

Year	Award	Summary of award and significance
2015	Achievement in Quality Improvement – Hunter Children’s Research Fund - Community Acknowledgement of Research Excellence (C.A.R.E.) Awards	The Hunter Children’s Research Foundation was established in 1996 to raise funds for the research of children’s health. The C.A.R.E award recognises initiatives that demonstrate excellence in the community.
2014	Business/Higher Education Round Table B-HERT - Best Community Engagement - Healthy Dads, Healthy Kids, (Sponsored by the Australian Government/Ansto)	B/HERT Awards were established in 1998 to recognise outstanding achievement in collaboration between business and higher education in the fields of research & development and education & training. The objective of the program is to highlight at a national level the benefits of such collaboration and enhance links between industry and universities.
2014	Excellence in Obesity Prevention Award – Healthy Dads, Healthy Kids program, awarded by the World Health Organisation’s Collaboration on Obesity Prevention (COOPs)	This COOPs award recognised HDHK as the best community-based obesity prevention program in Australia. The award was bestowed to HDHK for demonstrating best practice, excellence and leadership in tackling obesity at a community scale.
2010	Poster Prize – best research project in Public Health and Policy, International Congress on Obesity (ICO)	This prize was awarded in recognition of the best poster in Public Health and Policy at the ICO. The award was shortlisted by an International Scientific Committee from a pool of 140 abstracts, with the final prize judged by keynote presenters and ICO peers.
2009	Asics Medal - Best Paper Overall, Australian Sports Medicine Federation Fellows Award	This major research prize recognises the best paper overall from those presented at the ASICS Be Active Conference (of Science and Medicine in Sport). In 2009, more than 500 research papers were considered for this award.
2009	Best Paper - Physical Activity and Health Promotion, Australian Sports Medicine Federation Fellows Award	This prize is awarded to the best paper presented at the ASICS Be Active Conference (of Science and Medicine in Sport) in the field of Physical Activity and Health Promotion.