A new book launched by the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) on 28 February contains a collection of research papers from the fourth HRC Pacific Health Research Fono, which was held last year.
“The Fono, with its theme Pacific Edge: Transforming knowledge into innovative practice, was an opportunity to share learnings about Pacific health research, and this publication is a tangible outcome of that opportunity,” says HRC Chief Executive, Dr Robin Olds.
Dr Kevin Moran and Sandy Harrop examine drowning fatalities from recreational net fishing, which is a valuable and relatively cheap food source for many Pacific families in New Zealand.
They say the practice of net fishing in New Zealand waters is often more dangerous than waters in the Pacific islands, where fishing in lagoons with little or no surf is very different from sea conditions experienced on surf coastlines. While land-and boat-based fishing have benefitted from safety interventions in recent years, the practice of net fishing at beaches and harbours has not.
Water safety education for net fishing was developed and delivered via a number of channels, including Pacific events and church ministers. Ministers promoted safe net fishing practices and the use of lifejackets and were given lifejacket to wear and distribute.
The study concludes that leaving the understanding and practice of water safety of Pasifika peoples to chance in a water-oriented society is not an option, and they anticipate carrying out further work in this area to reduce the incidence of death by drowning for the Pacific community. By working collaboratively, the key partners in the project said that they would be able to address safety issues surrounding death by drowning for Pacific communities.
Amio Matenga-Ikihele and co-author Dr Vili Nosa provide an insight into the sexual behaviours of adolescent New Zealand-born Niuean families. Their findings highlight concerns about the lack of knowledge adolescents in the study had towards contraception and sexually transmitted infections.
The authors recommend that schools involve adolescents in curriculum development related to sexual health education, to ensure that Niuean adolescent females have adequate information and advice to help them make safer sexual decisions.
Dr Vili Nosa discusses the effectiveness of smoking cessation products and services for Pacific peoples, which has not previously been studied. Smoking prevalence rates for the four main Pacific ethnic groups i in New Zealand are significantly higher than the national average.
Dr Nosa’s study concludes that smoking cessation services need to be at a ‘face-to-face’ level, so that Pacific smokers who want to quit can meet with a Quit service counsellor.
There also needs to be stronger community awareness about smoking cessation services that are available for Pacific peoples, and that these need to be promoted widely within the Pacific community. Dr Nosa suggests that along with the development of a wider range of smoking cessation resources that are culturally appropriate for different Pacific groups, cessation support needs to be affordable, and advice about how to use treatments properly should be readily accessible.
In a chapter about new directions in Pacific health Dr Elaine Ballard et al. discuss the Boston naming test (BNT), which is used to diagnose language difficulties in patients with aphasia ii and the first stage in the development of a Tongan version of the BNT.
The BNT is a picture-naming test, which exploits variations in word frequency to diagnose linguistic impairments in patients with aphasia. It has been translated into a variety of languages, including Spanish and Korean. Dr Ballard discusses the first stage in the development of a Tongan version of the BNT, which will be used in further research into ethnicity and stroke prevalence in Pacific peoples in New Zealand.
The cost of the book is $30.00 plus postage and handling.
(i) Samoan, Cook Islands, Tongan and Niuean
(ii) Aphasia is the inability (or impaired ability) to understand or produce speech as a result of damage to the brain