At the recent 18th Biennial World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC) Congress, held in Copenhagen, Denmark from 7–10 May 2025, Natalie Chin Ziqing, an IMU chiropractic alumna, chiropractic lecturer at IMU, and recent graduate of IMU University’s Master of Science in Public Health programme, was honoured with the International Board of Chiropractic Examiners Poster Award – Asia Region.

Natalie’s award-winning project was developed as part of her postgraduate studies, as she explored the utilisation of chiropractic care among blue-collar workers in Malaysia- a population often overlooked in the discourse surrounding musculoskeletal health.

Part of her inspiration for this project, Natalie shared that “Ever since I personally experienced the benefits of chiropractic care, I have hoped that more individuals would be able to access and benefit from it. Unfortunately, for many households in Malaysia, chiropractic care is still viewed as a luxury rather than a necessity. Unlike conventional medical services or physiotherapy, which are accessible through government hospitals, chiropractic services are not as readily available to the general public.”

Driven by this gap, Natalie single-handedly worked on reaching out to companies to connect with blue-collar workers, and thereafter held both focus-group discussions and one-on-one interviews with them, ranging from drivers to factory workers, as a platform for them to express their views, which included both Malaysians and non-Malaysians.

Natalie shared that “Through the discussions, I was able to understand the challenges that they face, and their awareness and knowledge about musculoskeletal pain and chiropractic care are lacking. They have also highlighted that finance and time constraints play a big role in the barriers in terms of utilising chiropractic care.”

Natalie shared that to better understand this in a 360 point of view, she worked with stakeholders like supervisors or managers and Chiropractors. Through her interviews with the supervisors, she better understands the needs of the workers while the chiropractors gave her a better insight on the accessibility of chiropractic care to blue-collar workers.

As a small-scale project, it gives a better insight to improving the accessibility of chiropractic care and thereafter Natalie aims to bring the study into a larger scale to better understand and better facilitate access to care that is needed by the public.

Natalie mentioned, “It gives me great pride to be recognised on a large scale and has given me more confidence to drive this project further and to advance musculoskeletal health of the underserved populations. Chiropractic care is proven to provide holistic care for the patients and it acts as a complementary care to better improve patients’ musculoskeletal health outcomes in conjunction with the use of conventional medicine.”

Her achievement underscores the importance of bridging academic research with public health advocacy—an effort that IMU proudly supports through its interdisciplinary approach and commitment to community impact.