Āhuru Ākonga
Looking after emerging Māori cancer researchers
Hei Āhuru Mōwai Māori cancer leadership is committed to building a thriving Māori cancer research community. Supporting and increasing Māori cancer research capacity is one way to address the substantial disparities experienced by Māori across the cancer pathway.
Studying can be an exciting time for Māori students and looking after their mauri, wairua, tinana, hinengaro and whānau can provide unlimited benefits to the student, the institutions and Aotearoa nui tonu. As such, we have developed these tikanga/recommendations for universities and other education and research institutions to help support Māori Masters, PhD, and Post-doctoral students during their study.
• Āhuru karahipi – Provide Māori students with scholarships or bursaries at a living wage level.
• Āhuru koha – Provide Māori students with a tikanga allowance that matches the requirements of their project.
• Āhuru tono karahipi – Provide Māori students with scholarship application support including project refinement, creating a budget, and writing the application.
• Āhuru rauemi – Provide Māori students with office and lab space, preferably with other Māori students and staff.
• Āhuru wairua – Resource and support Māori students to access to rongoā, tohunga, matakite, kaumātua and kuia.
• Āhuru mauri – Provide Māori students access to Māori supervisors, topic, and cultural experts and a tuakana /teina programme.
• Āhuru whanaungatanga – Proactively support Māori students to engage with Māori networks and communities including whānau, hapū and iwi.
• Āhuru whānau - ensure whānau are welcomed into the study space, and that students are supported to maintain their whānau roles and responsibilities throughout their studies.
• Āhuru I te wā KOWHEORI 19 – ensure Māori students are well supported and COVID related impacts are minimised.
Nā tātou te rourou
We acknowledge that Māori students are well looked after by Māori research units and Māori departments within institutions, therefore we also recommend:
• Āhuru tari Māori - Disproportionately resource and support Māori departments within your institution to provide āhurutanga for themselves and students as they deem appropriate.
• Āhuru te kaupapa – Ensure that the total funding available in your research pool is equitably distributed and Te Tiriti o Waitangi compliant in terms of recipients, the type and focus of studies you support.
• Āhuru amo titoki - proactively support the development of Māori supervisors, Māori models of supervision practice, and examination processes that meet the needs of Māori students.
• Āhuru Whare Wānanga - critically review your institutional privilege and how your Māori students could be supported to study at Whare Wānanga Māori.
• Āhuru mātauranga Māori - critically review whether the kaupapa /research should and could be looked after by your institution or whether it is appropriate to be looked after by Whare Wānanga Māori.
Hearing the voices of whānau Māori on a cancer journey during the national COVID-19 response.
Āhuru mai i te rangi
Āhuru mai i te papa
Tū mai ngā turuturu tapu
Hei pou mō te aho
Hikitia ēnei kupu ki te whakaaro nui
Kia ora ai te whānau
Mauri ora.
There was a time in our recent history where whānau Māori voices in cancer care were structurally silenced - confined to kitchen tables, whānau gatherings and tangihanga speeches. A time when non-Māori defined our needs, aspirations, and cancer care requirements with little to no regard to the realities of whānau Māori.
In this puna kōrero, Hikitia has centered whānau Māori realities as the compass and wayfinder. Throughout the report Lou and Ali have enacted their name Hikitia - to amplify and lift up whānau voices. They did this throughout their approach and were adamant that this wouldn’t just be a collection of thoughts, there had to be action.
As you read the words of this report you will find consistent evidence of system failure. COVID illuminated every crevice and dark corner of our cancer control system. Lack of appointments, communication, culturally appropriate care and restrictions on whānau and hauora practices made whānau cancer journeys even more frightening.
What you will also find in this report is tū tāngata, tū maia and tū kaha. Stories of resilience, and of body, wairua and whānau sovereignty. You will be inspired by how whānau enacted their own tikanga and mana motuhake to sustain their oranga.
COVID pushed the already inequitable Aotearoa health system to its brink, and we know that this type of global phenomenon will not be the last. We must be better prepared, with targeted investment and an unwavering focus on equitable whānau centered responses. The urgency in this report is clear, we must invest in whānau and their wawata now. We must follow their lead.
Nā te whānau te kī.
Moahuia Goza
Ngāti Kauwhata, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Unu.
Published rangahau
Our members’ rangahau published in a range of academic and industry publications.
Hepetema 2024
Cancer Epidemiology. Blood cancer incidence, mortality and survival for Māori in New Zealand. Click here.
The New Zealand Medical Journal. Characteristics and outcomes of lung cancer patients presenting through the emergency department: a Waikato District Health Board study. Click here.
Ākuhata 2024
Cancer Causes & Control. Indigenous access to clinical services along the lung cancer treatment pathway: a review of current evidence. Click here.
Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and Cancer (Book). Cervical Screening by HPV Self-Testing: A Game Changer for Māori (pp. 161-166) Click here. Cancer and Comorbidity in Indigenous Populations (pp. 233-236) Click here. Improving Cancer Trial Participation for Indigenous People (pp. 337-342) Click here. The Power of Genomics (pp367-371) Click here. Communicating Cancer Survival Inequalities Among Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (pp.287-293) Click here.
Hune 2024
The Lancet Regional Health–Western Pacific. Ethnic differences in time to surgery for women with early stage breast cancer in Aotearoa/New Zealand: a population-based study. Click here.
Āpereira 2024
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health. What we do matters: Supporting anti-racism and decolonisation of public health teaching and practice through the development of Māori public health competencies. Click here.
Māehe 2024
Preprints with The Lancet. Tū Kaha: He Mōhio Ki Ngā Māori O Te Kōmaoa Waewae (Stand Strong: A Study of Māori with Venous Leg Ulcers). Click here.
Cancer Reports. Does diabetes affect breast cancer survival? Click here.
Pēpuere 2024
Supportive Care in Cancer. Equity of travel to access surgery and radiation therapy for lung cancer in New Zealand. Click here.
JCO Global Oncology. Access to and Timeliness of Lung Cancer Surgery, Radiation Therapy, and Systemic Therapy in New Zealand: A Universal Health Care Context. Click here.
JCO Global Oncology. Cancer Screening Services: What Do Indigenous Communities Want? A Systematic Review. Click here.
New Zealand Medical Journal. Perceived barriers to self-collected HPV testing for cervical cancer screening, and knowledge of HPV: a survey of primary healthcare smear-takers across Aotearoa New Zealand. Click here.
Hānuere 2024
International Journal for Equity in Health. Adapting an equity-focused implementation process framework with a focus on ethnic health inequities in the Aotearoa New Zealand context. Click here.
Cancer Epidemiology. The growing cancer burden: Age-period-cohort projections in Aotearoa New Zealand 2020-2044. Click here.
Tihema 2023
Ethnographic Edge. Te Pepe Ao Uri Whāriki: The Development of Pūrākau Analysis Framework. Click here.
Hepetema 2023
BMC public health. Effectiveness of nicotine salt vapes, cytisine, and a combination of these products, for smoking cessation in New Zealand: protocol for a three-arm, pragmatic, community-based randomised controlled trial. Click here.
Ākuhata 2023
PLoS ONE. Invitation methods for Indigenous New Zealand Māori in lung cancer screening: Protocol for a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial. Click here.
BMC Cancer. Receipt of mastectomy and adjuvant radiotherapy following breast conserving surgery (BCS) in New Zealand women with BCS-eligible breast cancer, 2010–2015: an observational study focusing on ethnic differences. Click here.
JMIR. A Model for Empowering Rural Solutions for Cervical Cancer Prevention (He Tapu Te Whare Tangata): Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Crossover Trial. Click here.
Higher Education Research & Development. Challenging structural racism through the development of equity-driven core Māori hauora ā iwi/public health competencies for university hauora ā iwi/public health teaching. Click here.
Internal Medicine Journal. Ethnic differences in the characteristics of patients with newly diagnosed lung cancer in the Te Manawa Taki region of New Zealand. Click here.
Hūrae 2023
Journal of the Royal Society of NZ. Creating an environment to inform, build, and sustain a Māori health research workforce. Click here.
Mei 2023
JCO Global Oncology. Equity of Cancer and Diabetes Co-Occurrence: A National Study With 44 Million Person-Years of Follow-Up. Click here.
Āpereira 2023
AlterNative An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples. Palliative care and quality of life needs and outcomes for Māori with cancer: what do we know? Click here.
Pēpuere 2023
BMJ Open. Supporting implementation of interventions to address ethnicity-related health inequities: frameworks, facilitators and barriers – a scoping review protocol. Click here.
Tihema 2022
New Zealand Medical Journal. The past, present and future of liver cancer control for Māori. Click here.
Hepetema 2022
The Lancet Oncology. Te Aho o Te Kahu: weaving equity into national-level cancer control. Click here.
Ākuhata 2022
The Lancet. Mortality outcomes and inequities experienced by rural Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand. Click here.
JCO Global Oncology. Where are we dying? Ethnic differences in place of death among New Zealanders dying of cancer. Click here.
BMJ Open. Equity of timely access to liver and stomach cancer surgery for Indigenous patients in New Zealand: A national cohort study. Click here.
PLos ONE. Equity of travel required to access first definitive surgery for liver or stomach cancer in New Zealand. Click here.
Hune 2022
New Zealand Medical Journal. The impact of COVID-19 on lung cancer detection, diagnosis and treatment for Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand. Click here.
Tihema 2021
Family Practice. Patient-reported diagnostic intervals to colorectal cancer diagnosis in the Midland region of New Zealand: a prospective cohort study. Click here.
Hepetema 2021
NZ Medical Journal. Disparities in post-operative mortality between Māori and non-Indigenous ethnic groups in New Zealand. Click here.
Ākuhata 2021
Research Review Expert Forum. Reviews from Prof Sue Crengle, Dr Melissa Mcleod and Dr Nina Scott. Aotearoa Lung Cancer Screening Symposium. Click here.
The Lancet Regional Health - Western Pacific. Acceptability of human papillomavirus (HPV) self-sampling among never- and under-screened Indigenous and other minority women: a randomised three-arm community trial in Aotearoa New Zealand. Click here.
Māehe 2021
NZ Medical Journal. Recommendations for implementing HPV Self-testing in Aotearoa. Click here.
NZ Medical Journal. Bowel cancer screening age - what is all the fuss about? Click here.
The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific. Maintaining cancer services during the COVID 19 pandemic: the Aotearoa New Zealand experience. Click here.
Pēpuere 2021
The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer diagnosis and service access in New Zealand–a country pursuing COVID-19 elimination. Click here.
NZ Medical Journal. Telehealth as a tool for equity, pros, cons and recommendations. Click here.
BMC Cancer. Hā Ora: secondary care barriers and enablers to early diagnosis of lung cancer for Māori communities. Click here.
Hanuere 2021
Smear your mea evaluation report. Click here.
Tīhema, 2020
Journal of Cancer Policy. A critical te Tiriti analysis of the New Zealand cancer action plan 2019–2029. Click here.
Hepetema 2020
NZ Medical Journal. The most commonly diagnosed and most common causes of cancer death for Māori New Zealanders. Click here.
NZ Medical Journal. Inequalities between Maori and non-Maori men with prostate cancer in Aotearoa New Zealand. Click
Ākuhata, 2020
BMJ Open. Impact of low-dose CT screening for lung cancer on ethnic health inequities in New Zealand: a cost effectiveness analysis. Click here.
BMJ Open. Postoperative mortality in New Zealand following general anaesthetic: demographic patterns and temporal trends. Click here.
Hune 2020
JCO Global Oncology. Disparities in cancer specific survival between Māori and non-Māori New Zealanders, 2007-2016. Click here.
Hānuere 2020
Journal of cancer policy. Addressing cancer inequities for indigenous populations. The New Zealand story. Click here.
NZ Medical Journal. Stage at diagnosis for Māori cancer patients, disparities, similarities and data limitations. Click here.
JCO Global Oncology. Indigenous Cancer Research: Reflections on Roles and Responsibilities. Click here.
Noema 2019
NZ Medical Journal. Viewpoint. Equity by 2030. Achieving equity in survival for Māori cancer patients. Click here.
Journal of cancer policy. A critical Tiriti Analysis of the New Zealand Cancer Control Strategy. Click here.
Hune 2019
The Lancet Oncology. Mapping a route to Indigenous engagement in cancer genomic research. Click here.
Tihema 2018
European Journal of Cancer Care. Health service provider responses to indigenous peoples with cancer: An integrative review. Click here.
Hune 2018
The Lancet Oncology. Improving the health of indigenous people globally. Click here.
Mei 2018
Global Health Promotion. Cultural health literacy: the experiences of Māori in palliative care. Click here.
Pēpuere 2018
NZ Medical Journal. Letter. New Zealand's revised Ethnicity Data Protocols must not become a shelved document: a challenge from Hei Āhuru Mōwai. Click here.
Oketopa 2016
Te Mata Hautū Taketake – Māori & Indigenous Governance Centre University of Waikato. Te Mata Ira, guidelines for Genomic Research with Māori. Click here.