The Tertiary Education Commission has awarded $40.5 million to ‘Healthy Hearts for Aotearoa New Zealand’ (HHANZ), for a new Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) based in the School of Medical Sciences, FMHS.
This funding is the largest tranche of money ever allocated to heart research in New Zealand and is the first heart – focussed CoRE awarded.
The funding is most timely as heart disease continues to be the biggest contributor to the difference in life expectancy between Māori and Pacific peoples compared to other New Zealanders and remains the leading cause of death and disability in Aotearoa.
HHANZ will bring together researchers, health care practitioners and community groups under the leadership of co-directors Dr Anna Rolleston (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngai Te Rangi, Ngāti Pukenga) and Professor Julian Paton, of the Department of Physiology, in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences.
Guided by both Māori leadership and Pacific leadership committees, the CoRE will assemble infrastructure to discover, develop and inform new early-diagnostics, treatments, and strategies to improve equity and help to lay the foundation for training and developing the future generation of Aotearoa’s heart health workforce. HHANZ is for all cardiovascular researchers across our nation. It is all about business not as usual, using a kaupapa Māori approach with horizontal integration of researchers across multiple disciplines focused on specific health needs defined by our communities. By addressing equity, HHANZ’s goal is to improve heart health and wellbeing for all people of Aotearoa.