For the first time in its 140-year history, the University of Auckland is opening a research centre dedicated to Pasifika health.

Te Poutoko Ora a Kiwa - Centre for Pacific and Global Health - will officially be launched at a ceremony at the university’s Fale Pasifika today.

It is one of seven new transdisciplinary research centres at the university; but is the only one with a focus on Pacific and global health.

Respected Pacific health expert and doctor, Sir Collin Tukuitonga, is one of three health researchers named as directors for the new centre, which will come under the institution’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences.

Sir Collin said it was a great day for all involved and acknowledged how the data that would come out of the centre would ultimately help Pacific communities both in New Zealand and those back in the island motherlands.

Better data means a better response

“The more precise information we have, the better off we have in terms of designing a response.”

Pacific Islanders tend to be categorised as one big group, but that was often not helpful, he said.

“Major, major problems with data quality for Pacific people - and that will be one of the things that we need to focus on, is to improve the collection of data and validity and make sure that the data is as accurate as we can make it.

A Pacific youth-led vaccination event held at Fale o Samoa in Māngere, in order to get their community vaccinated against Covid-19. Photo / Dean Purcell

“For example, with Covid-19, most of the [Pacific] cases were in the Samoan community and the more information that we have specifically about how Covid-19 has impacted the Samoan community, the better off we are in terms of...how we respond,” he said.

“So I think it’s really important that we can get as good data as we can get.”

The centre will be funded for five years and will see a core group of people working on different projects.

They will focus on research into health issues that affect Pasifika peoples hugely, but which Sir Collin described as being ignored or not well-studied.

They include diabetes, heart disease, obesity and its impact on people, children and young people and outbreaks such as Covid.

Other issues to be looked at closely are mental health and the impact of climate change on health in the Pacific region.

The centre is carrying out a mental health study in Polynesian countries and have just completed one in Samoa. Researchers are heading to Tonga next.

 “The idea there is that we’ll take study findings and work with the island officials to develop a response to the problems of mental health disorders.”

Another project involves the Fred Hollows Foundation, which was founded by NZ-born eye surgeon Professor Fred Hollows and his wife Gabi 31 years ago to help restore sight to the needlessly blind.

Te Poutoko Ora a Kiwa’s work will involve looking at vision and eye health opportunities in Pacific Island countries, where the foundation already provides eye care services in Vanuatu, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Papua New Guinea.

Inspiring a new generation of Pasifika health researchers

“That will mean talking to people in the communities - particularly people in the villages that are affected by poor vision and they’re not able to get help.

“So a lot of the work that we do would have to be with communities.”

A Pacific response saw community leaders, church ministers and health providers calling on Pasifika to get vaccinated against Covid-19 during the outbreak. Photo / Alex Burton

The centre’s other big initiative is to invest in Pacific students interested in this field.

“We want to create a place where young Pacific people see themselves in a career in health research,” Sir Collin said.

“We want to provide an environment for them. We recently awarded two PhDs and we want to do more of those - that’s a really important part of this.

“It’s a fairly ambitious programme, but it’s a signal of the way forwards.”