2022 Colloquium

Barry Milne, Director

Lisa Underwood & Ofa Dewes

Our broader project uses health & Census data to assess outcomes for people who have a family member with a long-term health condition. We first explore the characteristics of NZ families affected by one or more long-term health conditions such as Diabetes, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Mental health/behaviour problems. Next, we present the household and community strengths that allow Pacific families in NZ to thrive despite the challenges of living in families with chronic disease. To close, we report findings on young people who provide care to others who are ill or have a disability, with a focus on Pacific carers.

Arezoo Malihi

Using the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), we identify over 24,000 refugees between 1997 and 2019 from four sub-groups (Asylum Seeker, Convention, Quota, and Refugee Family Support Category visa holders). Drawing from a range of datasets (Immigration, Inland Revenue, Ministry of Education, and Census), we describe the socioeconomic characteristics of this cohort and compare resettlement outcomes such as income, education, housing, and mental health access. Our findings show socioeconomic and social service access disparities between refugee sub-groups and between refugees and the general population. Results highlight implications for settlement policy to support positive settlement experiences and integration outcomes.

Barry Milne

The most common question I am asked about the IDI is, “Are there data about ‘X’ in the IDI?” Often, I don’t know the answer. To help IDI users find out for themselves, a team at Te Rourou Tātaritanga (Tom Elliott, Eileen Li & myself) have developed an IDI Search App, https://idisearch.terourou.org. The app contains a database of all the variables in the IDI since the Jan 2020 refresh. Researchers can use key words to search for variables, tables, and collections. The app is also starting to be populated with metadata describing IDI tables and variables (thanks to Caleb Stone and Anis Azizi from Stats NZ!) so may eventually become a one-stop shop to understand the contents of the IDI. I will present the app and demonstrate how it works. I welcome feedback about how it can best serve the community of IDI users.

Komathi Kolandai & Martin von Randow

We provide an overview of the ISSP – a continuing annual cross-national research collaboration in which New Zealand has participated since 1991. We illustrate cross-time and cross-country trends on selected variables and discuss implications for future social science research.

Barry Milne

The Better Start “E Tipu E Rea” National Science Challenge aims to understand the issues facing children and young people in New Zealand, with a focus on three themes: Healthy Weight, Resilient Teens, and Successful Literacy and Learning. COMPASS leads the ‘Big Data’ themes, which undertakes analyses of whole population data (typically the IDI) to answer key questions of importance to the three substantive themes. I will describe what we have achieved in the second phase of the research (since 2020) and will also describe ongoing research on mental health in Pacific communities and planned simulation research.

Barry Milne

Population-level administrative data (like the IDI) have substantially advanced our understanding of life-course development. I will review evidence showing population-level administrative data has enabled researchers and policy makers to:

• understand small or difficult-to-study populations,
• evaluate intergenerational and family influences,
• use natural experiments to estimate causal effects,
• identify individuals at risk for negative developmental outcomes, and
• assess neighbourhood and environmental influences.

Use of such data require care, however, and should involve consultation with population subgroups including vulnerable groups, ongoing efforts to maintain social license, and strong ethical oversight and governance arrangements.