PeerJ Award Winners at ASBHM 2025

The Annual Scientific Conference for the Australasian Society for Behavioural Health and Medicine (ASBHM) was held at Southern Cross University on the Gold Coast, Australia from February 5-7th. Officially opened by ASBHM President, Dr Caitlin Liddelow, and the Dean of Health for Southern Cross University, Professor Julie Jomeen, the conference saw 125 delegates across three days of innovative and inspirational presentations from Australasian researchers. Professor Christina Pollard (Curtin University), Professor Antonia Lyons (University of Auckland) and Associate Professor James Kirby (University of Queensland) were the three Keynote Speakers for the event, presenting key research related to food insecurity and health, critical health psychology and digital media, and compassion therapy in healthcare. The next annual conference will be held in Auckland, New Zealand from 11-13 February 2026.

Annie Jones Research Fellow at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your research interests?

I am a health psychology researcher passionate about helping people live well. I completed my undergraduate, Master’s and PhD at the University of Auckland and then in 2019, I moved to the UK to take up a Research Fellow position at University College London, followed by a second postdoctoral position at King’s College London. I ended up spending 5 years in the UK, training with leading health psychology researchers and labs, before bringing my skills home to New Zealand in 2024.

My work focuses on designing and implementing interventions, including digital tools, to support self-management in long-term health conditions. A key area of my research is visualisation – creating visual representations of disease and treatment. Visualisations allow patients to see inside their body, in terms of how an illness has occurred and how treatments work. My research has shown their value in improving objective health behaviours and adherence to treatment. I am also interested in understanding and reducing psychological distress in patients living with long-term health conditions. I have experience delivering complex interventions in healthcare systems in New Zealand and the UK in a range of illness groups such as heart disease, cancer, tuberculosis, HIV, inflammatory bowel disease and more.

What first interested you in this field of research?

Psychology has always fascinated me, and I knew early on that I wanted to pursue it at university. When I discovered health psychology and learnt about the connection between our physical and mental health, I found my niche. This interest is also personal as my family has a genetic chronic condition, meaning I’ve seen firsthand the challenges of managing long-term health conditions. This experience has inspired my research interests and passion to enhance psychological and physical wellbeing for people with long-term health conditions.

Can you briefly explain the research you presented at ASBHM 2025?

Since returning home to NZ in 2024, I’ve been working as a Research Fellow and Product Manager for Headstrong – a free app designed to support mental wellbeing and resilience for young people in New Zealand. This app is funded by Health New Zealand and run by our multidisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Auckland. My experience with implementing digital interventions enables me to support the team in its national roll-out. At ASBHM 2025, I presented our research project exploring user perspectives of the acceptability and safety of incorporating generative AI into Headstrong. We conducted 16 interviews with young people and 8 with youth mental health professionals, where they tested both the original headstrong chatbot and an AI-enhanced version.

Key findings were that young people preferred the AI-enhanced chatbot, describing it as feeling more natural and real, therefore highlighting that this human ‘feeling’ was important for engagement. Professionals were less definitive in a preference, noting that while the AI chatbot was more engaging, it could increase cognitive demand for users. Another theme we highlighted was the trade-off between access and accuracy of chatbot-delivered support. Participants discussed the clear strengths of a chatbot providing anonymous, scalable, on-demand access to support, however health professionals highlighted concerns around clinical safety, efficacy, and bias. These insights are guiding our approach to integrating AI into Headstrong in a meaningful way which balances user experience with clinical efficacy and safety.

How will you continue to build on this research?

Headstrong is currently piloting the use of AI to improve chatbot responses to user input. This rollout is being carefully monitored, with a focus on continuous testing and user education to ensure responsible AI use.

On a personal note, I am excited to be starting a Fellowship funded by the Auckland Medical Research Foundation in April 2025. In this project, I will be moving back into visualisation research, to develop and test a novel intervention to support children and families undergoing paediatric radiotherapy. If you are interested in learning more about Headstrong, you can find us at Headstrong.co.nz or follow us on social media @HeadstrongNZ. To connect with me about my research, reach out via LinkedIn or email at annie.jones@auckland.ac.nz. Finally, a big thank you to PeerJ for sponsoring this award!

Kiarne Humphreys PhD Candidate at University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your research interests?

I am a PhD Candidate at UNSW Sydney researching the nocebo effect – a fascinating phenomenon where psychological, rather than pharmacological, mechanisms cause treatment side effects. I’m particularly interested in how the treatment context influences nocebo mechanisms and subsequent outcomes.

What first interested you in this field of research?

I started my research on the nocebo effect during my Honours year. I had never heard of the nocebo effect before, but once I started reading the literature on it I was immediately hooked. I was shocked when I learned that a substantial proportion of all medication side effects are actually attributable to the nocebo effect rather than the active ingredients of the treatment itself. What particularly intrigued me was how few people had heard of the nocebo effect, relative to its counterpart, the placebo effect. This unawareness of the nocebo effect and its significant implications for patient treatment outcomes motivated me to continue my research in this field.

Can you briefly explain the research you presented at ASBHM 2025?

At ASBHM2025, I presented findings from the first study in my PhD. I investigated how the source and consistency of side effect information influenced patient side effect expectations and anxiety, which are two key mechanisms underlying the nocebo effect. Our findings revealed that exposure to side effect information via social media posts generates significantly higher levels of side effect expectations and related anxiety compared to exposure of side effect information via a traditional Patient Information Leaflet, particularly when the side effects mentioned conflict with official warnings. These results are particularly relevant given the increasing role that social media plays in health information-seeking and sharing behaviours and highlight the potential challenges for healthcare communication in this digital age.

How will you continue to build on this research?

Building on these findings, my research will expand in several directions. First, I plan to conduct an experimental study examining whether the heightened side effect expectations and anxiety triggered by social media exposure translate into actual nocebo effects during treatment. Additionally, I aim to identify specific elements within social media environments that may amplify negative treatment expectations, anxiety, and subsequent nocebo effects. This work will inform the development of interventions that increase awareness of nocebo effects and mitigate nocebo effects.

Rebecca Hodder Early Career Fellow at the University of Newcastle and National Centre of Implementation Science.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your research interests?

I am a behavioural scientist with a background in psychology (BA (Psyc), Masters of Applied Psychology, PhD) with 18 years’ experience implementing and evaluating community-level chronic disease prevention programs in children. My current research interests are in identifying evidence-practice gaps in school-based chronic disease prevention, effective strategies to improve their implementation, and assessing the mental wellbeing and educational co-benefits of these programs. I am also have a particular interest and expertise in evidence synthesis, including living systematic reviews and am Cochrane Public Health Methods Editor and Research Associate.

What first interested you in this field of research?

The program of work I’m currently leading stems from two key research interests. I am really passionate and committed to research on improving the health and wellbeing outcomes of children and adolescents in the settings in which they spend the most amount of time, which is predominantly schools. Of equal interest to me is ways to reduce the translation pathways between the generation of research evidence and implementation of effective programs to ensure public health programs are both evidence-based and based on the most up to date evidence

Can you briefly explain the research you presented at ASBHM 2025?

I presented the findings of a recent pilot study we conducted to investigate the acceptability and feasibility of an evidence-based physical activity and mental wellbeing programs in a sample of Australian secondary schools. The program involved schools implementing high intensity interval training, resistance training, and mental wellbeing lessons to year 7 students over a 5 week period. We found the combined physical activity and mental wellbeing program to be both feasible and acceptable to both teachers and students, and collected important information about barriers to implementation and ways to improve program components to increase student engagement.

How will you continue to build on this research?

Our next step is to conduct a more rigorous study using a randomised controlled study design to determine the impact of the combined physical activity and mental wellbeing program on student-level outcomes including physical activity, mental wellbeing and a range of other outcomes.