Pēpi and rangatahi health targeted in latest Cure Kids research projects

Cure kids research will help Māori pēpi and rangatahi. Photo / File

Cure Kids will fund nine new research projects - including one specific to pēpi Māori and another to support rangatahi and mental health - designed to improve health outcomes for young Māori.

After a rigorous process of peer review, of 41 application proposals, nine grants totalling $1 million were awarded.

Frances Benge, chief executive of Cure Kids, says New Zealand researchers proposed a range of ideas in response to major paediatric health conditions.

“These projects represent a high level of innovation in child health research that could have a significant positive impact on some of the most pressing health issues facing Kiwi children. These newly funded projects follow significant breakthroughs over more than 50 years of support from Cure Kids, and we’re looking forward to seeing this research make a further difference for children in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world.”

Frances Benge, Cure Kids CEO. Photo / Supplied.

The funded projects include:

Adapting online tools to enable safe communication about self-harm and suicide

Led by Associate Professor Sarah Hetrick and Dr Tania Cargo (Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Manu, Ngāpuhi), the team propose to adapt an online tool called #chatsafe to help rangatahi, young people in New Zealand communicate online about self-harm and suicide without the risk of imitative suicidal behavior imitation.

They’ll convene expert panels that include rangatahi, young people and Māori to develop a culturally safe version of #chatsafe.#chatsafe is a social media campaign and set of evidence-informed guidelines about how to communicate safely about self-harm and suicide online.

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in young people, with rangatahi Māori and their whānau disproportionately affected by self-harm and suicide. Access to enormous amounts of online content can be harmful to rangatahi and lead to imitative suicidal behaviour.

Developed in Australia, #chatsafe was developed in response to a high-risk, high-profile death, and has been successfully used in New Zealand by the Suicide Prevention Office reaching large numbers of young people.

However, due to the inequities faced by rangatahi Māori, there is an urgent need to co-design #chatsafe for the New Zealand context.

Adapting online tools to enable safe communication about self-harm and suicide

Opportunities for Primary Care action to improve immunisation of pēpi Māori

Dr Anna Howe and Dr Amber Young will partner with Hāpai te Hauora to explore how the health sector can be more responsive to ensure that whānau receive vital support and information to help them care for their newborn babies.

This research aims to increase the number of whānau enrolled with primary healthcare providers, to protect Māori children from vaccine-preventable diseases.