Australian demographer John Caldwell and his compatriot, physician Catherine Hamlin, were conferred the United Nations Population Awards on Tuesday for their work to improve people's health and welfare.

At a ceremony held at the UN headquarters in New York, the two winners each received a certificate, a gold medal and an equal share of a monetary prize.

Caldwell, the emeritus professor of demography in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra, won this year's UN award for his exceptional contribution to population studies. His work to frame the HIV/AIDSepidemic in Africa as a demographic, epidemiological and socio-cultural phenomenon is considered to be without peer.

Hamlin gained the award for the establishment of a fistula hospital in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, with her late husband, Reginald Hamlin. The hospital specializes in treating obstetric fistula, a devastating childbirth injury that leaves a woman in continent.

The hospital provides free medical care to more than 1,200 women annually and has treated over 25,000 women since its founding in 1974.

Source: Xinhua