Dr Amohia Bolton is the Research Director at Whakaue Research for Māori Health & Development with a career that has spanned public policy and academia. She has previously worked as a data analyst (Ministry of Education) policy analyst, senior analyst (Te Puni Kōkiri) and Private Secretary (Māori Affairs) and was awarded an HRC Māori Health Training Fellowship to pursue doctoral study at Massey University in Palmerston North. Her post-doctoral research took her to the University of Northern British Columbia in Canada where she worked with the Lheidli T'enneh First Nations people.
Her research interests are in the fields of Māori health and mental health services, health governance, health reform, and the interface between health policy and service-level implementation. Her work to date has involved a number of evaluations of health systems and health services, including being a Principal Investigator on the Health Reforms 2001 Research Project, (a five year, HRC-funded evaluation) and, more recently the Evaluation of Multisystemic Therapy Alcohol and other Drug Services for the Hutt Valley District Health Board.
Amohia is currently a member of the Māori Health Committee of the Health Research Council of New Zealand and an Executive Member of the Health Services Research Association of Australia and New Zealand.
Related Projects
Scoping project
Project commenced:This study will explore how comparative views of “home” relate to concepts such as identity, whakapapa, and hauora and how these concepts thereby impact service utilisation and uptake in two areas (one rural and one urban). The research seeks to ask
How do urban and rural Māori conceptualise “home” and do these ideas of home differ across generations?
Do perceptions of home affect decisions to access services (education, health, financial, etc.?). If so, how?
How can services be improved to incorporate these views / perceptions of home?
Kia Tō Kia Tipu - Seeding Excellence
Project commenced:
How will tikanga Māori empower the evaluation of the experience of Māori whānau in crisis to measure the performance of the Government’s new obligations in law to Te Tiriti o Waitangi?
Our longterm objective is to bring new evaluative knowledge to empower the mana of whānau in crisis.
Māori have clearly and consistently stressed that a Māori child’s wellbeing is inherently linked to their place within, and connection to, whānau, hapū and iwi.
Kia Tō Kia Tipu - Seeding Excellence
Project commenced:What are the cultural, ethical, research, legal and scientific (CERLS) issues that are inherent in research on rongoā Māori plants and healing?
Debate about the misappropriation of information and knowledge in research means that greater care and attention is needed regarding Māori input and participation into research. This is even more important in the area of Rongoā Māori where matters such as inappropriate usage, intellectual property rights and commercialisation of information are of significant concern.