HRC funding targets complex health issues

University researchers have been granted $5.6m in the Health Research Council’s 2025 Health Delivery Project round. The funding will enable the researchers, who are all from the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences (FMHS), to investigate how to improve health services, from access to asthma and kidney disease care to improving support for the caregivers of children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.

The researchers from Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland are:

Dr Joanna Ting Wai Chu, Ms Anna Gundesen, 36 months, $1,399,870

Life with FASD: An effectiveness – implementation trial
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a lifelong disability that affects brain function and development, creating significant challenges for individuals, their families, and society. Despite the estimated $4.8 billion annual cost of FASD-related harm, there is a critical lack of support for caregivers and whānau.

This project, in partnership with FASD-CAN (FASD–Care Action Network), will evaluate Life with FASD: Understand and Connect with Aroha, a tailored support programme designed to empower caregivers with knowledge, resilience, and practical strategies. The funding will enable a two-phase approach, 1) co-design the trial with caregivers and stakeholders to ensure cultural and community relevance; 2) conduct a randomised controlled trial to measure its effectiveness. The findings will provide robust evidence to inform policy and service delivery, addressing the urgent need for FASD-informed and evidence-based support for whānau and individuals living with FASD.

Professor Catherine Byrnes, Dr Catherine Gilchrist, 48 months, $1,400,000

Can children with bronchiectasis spend less time in hospital?
Bronchiectasis (bron-key-ect-a-sis) is a preventable disease that causes lung scarring, making breathing hard. It especially affects Māori, Pacific and disadvantaged children. When bronchiectasis gets worse children have two weeks hospital treatment. Children describe hospital as ‘an inhospitable place.’

The trial will divide children hospitalised for bronchiectasis treatment into two groups, receiving either (1) the usual two-week hospital treatment; or (2) a shorter one-week hospital treatment plus one-week of treatment at home. The trial will compare getting better and staying well, general wellbeing, and treatment costs to see if hospital time can be shortened while maintaining good health outcomes. Findings will inform clinical practice and bronchiectasis treatment guidelines nationally and globally, and save money, reducing the burden on whānau and the healthcare system

Associate Professor Amy Chan, 36 months, $1,399,898

Point-of-care testing pathway for Māori and Pasifika with asthma
Asthma attacks are a major source of morbidity, with Māori and Pacific peoples experiencing significantly higher rates of attacks and oral corticosteroid (OCS) use. Current treatment guidelines recommend a standard OCS course for all asthma attacks, despite evidence that asthma is a complex disease with many different types of inflammation.

This “one-size-fits-all” approach leads to unnecessary OCS exposure, increasing the risk of serious long-term complications. Biomarker-guided therapy using accessible point-of-care testing (POCT) offers a personalised approach to the management of asthma attacks. This trial will recruit participants from primary care sites.

This project will generate the first NZ-based evidence on biomarker-guided asthma attack management, informing clinical guidelines and reducing unnecessary OCS use. It introduces a health delivery pathway using POCT to manage asthma attacks in primary care, potentially improving access to appropriate asthma treatments, timeliness of care and reduced healthcare costs.

Associate Professor Rachael Walker, Dr Nicholas Cross, 48 months, $1,399,554

Access to and equity of best treatment for people with kidney disease (ASSET) 

ASSET will describe the challenges in accessing health services by people with kidney failure and their clinicians, evaluate the use and effectiveness of existing services and their location, and consider differences arising from patients’ sex, gender, ethnicity, rurality, socioeconomic status, burden of multimorbidity, and the intersection of these characteristics.

ASSET has three work streams: (1) engage with patients and healthcare providers to identify facilitators and barriers to accessing best care for kidney disease and other illness using qualitative methods; (2) interrogate our linked health data platform to evaluate how comorbidity and kidney disease impacts access to care; and (3) use health economic modelling and geospatial mapping to understand potential benefits to patients and funders.

ASSET will provide evidence that identifies points of potential service practice re-design, including organisation and location of services. These results will support national policy change in health delivery, cost-efficiency, and the accessibility and equity of kidney services.