Lay summary
Despite treatment advances, Māori continue to experience worse asthma outcomes compared to non-Māori. One key contributing factor is inequity in treatment; Māori are less likely to receive guideline-adherent treatment with more days of high reliever use, underuse of maintenance therapy, and high oral steroid use. This activation activity aims to co-develop strategies to improve asthma treatment for Māori, via consultation and engagement with stakeholders such as primary health providers, respiratory specialists, policymakers, and is co-led with Māori researchers. The activity will be conducted in two stages. Stage 1 will describe the size of the issue of non-guideline adherent asthma treatment, with a breakdown by ethnicity and region, using data from linked Ministry of Health datasets. Stage 2 is the whakawhanaungata and co-development stage where we will discuss Stage 1 findings with key stakeholders to inform a future research agenda and strategies to improve asthma treatment for Māori.