Haumanu Hauora: Strengthening health institution responsiveness to climate change

Abstract

The “Haumanu Hauora: Strengthening health institution responsiveness to climate change” project (Haumanu Hauora) is funded by the Deep South National Science Challenge. Our research team has been working to determine how health institutions (for example DHBs) develop Māori responsive policy as a preparatory step in anticipation of climate change impacts on Māori health. The project has involved several components, one of which involved speaking with tāngata whenua and DHB staff from the Bay of Plenty, Lakes and Waikato DHB regions about their experiences of climate change and involvement with health services. Another component was an environmental scan of available website information on the 17 other DHBs to ascertain the extent of policy that speaks to both the Treaty of Waitangi and climate change. This report presents an overview of the findings.

This report begins with some context setting. We provide a summary of our literature reviews before a brief outline of the establishment of DHBs, which are the “health institution” of focus for this research. As the primary health provider and funders around the country, DHBs have been engaged as the site through which to understand the Māori health and climate change policy needs. Although DHBs were disestablished at the conclusion of our project, there are still lessons to learn from the ‘old’ health system. We present themes from tāngata whenua and rangatahi interviews as a way to foreground policy development information provided by DHB staff.