The Ageing Well National Science Challenge has partnered with the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) and the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) to co-fund vital research into addressing health inequities for ageing Māori.

Two projects have been funded through this collaborative effort to improve specific areas of inequity, including co-designing effective injury rehabilitation, addressing barriers to accessing ACC services, as well as improving injury prevention initiatives.

The partnership is pleased to announce the 2020 ACC-HRC Achieving equity for ageing Māori Request for Proposals (RFP) recipients:

Ms Katrina Bryant
Te Runanga o Otakou
$881,944

Research title
Taurite Tū – achieving equitable injury prevention outcomes for ageing Māori.

Lay summary
Falls is a leading cause of injury and leads to major impacts for ageing Māori. ACC acknowledge there are inequities for older Māori accessing injury prevention and rehabilitative services.

Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou (TRO) in collaboration with University of Otago falls and injury prevention researchers, have developed an effective falls prevention template for ageing Māori, Taurite Tū. Taurite Tū research outcomes demonstrate statistically significant improvement in falls risk and positive engagement of Māori community.

TRO intends to further investigate how the Taurite Tū template can be further used as a platform for ACC towards broadly achieving equitable outcomes in other areas of Aotearoa for ageing Māori in injury prevention, improve access to ACC services and to injury rehabilitative services. As with the original Taurite Tū research, the proposed research will be guided by evidence-based, physiotherapy research findings, mātauraka Māori and use Kaupapa Māori Research methodology.

Ms Joanna Hikaka
The University of Auckland
$1,421,318

Research title
Whaioranga te Pā Harakeke – Iwi-driven injury prevention and recovery for Māori

Lay summary
Māori older adults are more likely to experience injury than non-Māori, yet less likely to effectively access ACC prevention/rehabilitation services, further increasing inequities in health outcomes.

This project will use paeārahi (health navigators) who come from their own iwi and are upskilled to facilitate health delivery. This project will expand their roles to address injury prevention (e.g. falls exercises), ACC service access, and recovery and rehabilitation. It will use local knowledge and networks, and mātauranga Māori. Local hauora providers will facilitate paeārahi integration with older Māori communities across Te Arawa iwi boundaries. Access, activity and wellbeing outcomes will be tracked over time and paeārahi sustainability will be established.

This project aims to build an evidence-base to support enhanced Māori older adult access/engagement with ACC services, and identify iwi-designed solutions to increase ACC responsiveness to Māori older adults with potential benefits for individual, whānau, hapū and iwi.

Fore more information, please visit our Ageing and Maori research focus section.