Two U.S. physical therapists and two physical therapist students are making a global impression: All four have been honored with awards for outstanding abstracts and presentations submitted to the 2021 World Physiotherapy Congress held virtually April 9-11.

Among nearly 1,200 abstracts and presentations made available at the congress, only 40 are selected for the recognition, which is based on an assessment of both the presentation abstract and the quality of the presentation itself. This year's winners represented a diverse range of physical therapists from nations around the world, among them Nigeria, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the Republic of Korea, India, Greece, Norway, and Australia.

The U.S.-based award winners, all APTA members, were:

Amanda Braaten, SPT, at Duke University, for her poster presentation "Social determinants of health affect physical therapy usage: a systematic review."

Kim Dunleavy, PT, PhD, who accepted a subgroup award on behalf of the International Federation of Orthopaedic Manipulative Physical Therapists for "Chronic low back pain in seafood workers: effectiveness of participatory ergonomic self-management strategies."

Justin Losciale, PT, DPT, for his platform presentation, "Does biologic sex affect ACL injury risk? A systematic review with meta-analysis."

Ryan Morton, SPT, from Youngstown State University, for his platform presentation "Improving doctor of physical therapy programs in addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer health in the United States."

World Physiotherapy, formerly known as the World Confederation for Physical Therapy, holds an international congress event every two years (this year's gathering was online due to the coronavirus pandemic). The next congress will take place June 1-4, 2023, in Tokyo. APTA is a founding member of World Physiotherapy.