Lay summary
Māori older adults are more likely to experience injury than non-Māori, yet less likely to effectively access ACC prevention/rehabilitation services, further increasing inequities in health outcomes. This project will utilise paeārahi (health navigators) who come from their own iwi and are upskilled to facilitate health delivery. This project will expand their roles to address injury prevention (e.g. falls exercises), ACC service access, and recovery and rehabilitation. It will utilise local knowledge and networks, and mātauranga Māori. Local hauora providers will facilitate paeārahi integration with older Māori communities across Te Arawa iwi boundaries. Access, activity and wellbeing outcomes will be tracked over time and paeārahi sustainability will be established. This project aims to build an evidence-base to support enhanced Māori older adult access/engagement with ACC services, and identify iwi-designed solutions to increase ACC responsiveness to Māori older adults with potential benefits for individual, whānau, hapū and iwi.