CAMHI Brazil Scientific Supervisor receives prestigious international mental health award

Brazilian physician and researcher Luis Augusto Paim Rohde has received the Outstanding Achievement Prize, one of the most prestigious international awards in the field of mental health. Rohde, who serves as Scientific Supervisor of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Initiative (CAMHI) Brazil, was recognized for his career-long contributions to developmental psychiatry, with a particular focus on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). 

Last Friday (24), while accepting the award in New York, Rohde emphasized that it is possible to conduct “the highest quality science” on mental health in Latin American countries. “This recognition shows that the research developed in Brazil has global impact, especially in such a sensitive and fundamental field as child and adolescent mental health,” said Rohde, who is the first Latin American to receive the honor without being based in the United States. 

The prize, created 25 years ago and granted by the U.S.-based Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, an internationally recognized institution, highlights major advances in the understanding and treatment of early-onset mental and behavioral disorders across four key areas: Schizophrenia, Mood Disorders, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Rohde was selected for his scientific contributions in this last category, receiving the Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Research. 

Among his notable studies is one showing that differences in ADHD prevalence across countries stem from methodological factors in research rather than cultural issues. Regarding this mental health condition, the physician warns against the trivialization of the diagnosis driven by a surge in clinical evaluations that are not always accurate or sufficiently thorough, as well as the spread of misinformation to the public, often imprecise, particularly on social media platforms like TikTok. 

Rohde’s current research focuses on ADHD interventions. One study is investigating the use of gamified aerobic exercise with virtual reality headsets as a potential strategy to improve attention and executive functioning in diagnosed patients. 

About Rohde 

Luis Augusto Paim Rohde, 60, is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), a graduate professor of Psychiatry at the University of São Paulo (USP), General Coordinator of the ADHD Program at the Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, and President of the World Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions. He is the editor of nine books on child and adolescent mental health and has accumulated 58,000 citations and more than 450 published scientific articles. 

About CAMHI Brazil 

CAMHI Brazil is the Brazilian initiative of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Global Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Child Mind Institute (CMI), as part of it’s Global Health Initiative (GHI).