Lay summary
Sarah Kapeli is an undergraduate student at the University of Auckland, currently completing a Graduate Diploma majoring in Psychology. Sarah is extremely passionate about Pacific research and is currently being supervised by Associate Professor, Chris Sibley on an undergraduate research thesis pertaining to said area. For the summer studentship, Sarah intends to use longitudinal data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study to examine the rates of social support for Pacific men and women across the lifespan. This is important because social support can be used as an avenue to predict serious health outcomes, such as mental illness and suicide. Sarah hopes to use such research and progress it even further, to facilitate positive changes in the wider Pacific community through mental illness education and suicide prevention.