<p style="text-align:center"><em><span style="font-size:12px">Dr Amohia Boulton (left) and Andrew Sporle (centre) discuss Te Hao Nui research with Dr Heather Gifford.</span></em></p>

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<p>Iwi development planning is expected to be enhanced through ground-breaking rangatahi wellbeing quantitative research to be carried out over the next three years. Whakauae Research Director Dr Amohia Boulton, along with Andrew Sporle and Dr Reremoana Theodore, has been awarded HRC Rangahau Hauora M&#257;ori funding to support the study. Te Hao Nui aims to improve the policy and service interventions that support rangatahi wellbeing through making available high-quality information to inform iwi and regional M&#257;ori development planning. That work will contribute to the enhanced targeting of interventions and monitoring of outcomes. Rangatahi wellbeing is fundamental to the future health and wellbeing of M&#257;ori communities with more than half of the M&#257;ori population being aged under 25 years. Adolescence is the life stage where many health determining behaviours are established underlining the requirement for enhanced targeting and monitoring of interventions.</p>

<p>The research will enable the linking together of data from Te Kupenga, the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) and the Longitudinal Census Database to create the world&rsquo;s largest and most comprehensive Indigenous youth longitudinal study. Focusing on informing local interventions and policy, the study will transform national statistical data into the locally accessible information, linked into service delivery planning and evaluation at the iwi, rohe and regional levels, that M&#257;ori providers and communities have been asking for. It will prioritise identifying and actioning the determinants of positive rangatahi wellbeing taking in to account factors including regional variations and needs.</p>

<p>New M&#257;ori knowledge will be generated, through the research process, about the factors associated with rangatahi wellbeing. The approach adapts existing research in an innovative way and will create high quality, permanent data resources. The research team will engage with stakeholders to create tailored research summaries, an innovation that will persist beyond the life of the study and continue to enhance iwi and M&#257;ori development planning.</p>
