Funding being pumped in from the National Heart Foundation is helping University of Otago researchers beat the odds when it comes to improving heart health equity in New Zealand.
University of Otago department of medicine and Christchurch Heart Institute researcher Dr Andree Pearson is dedicated to improving heart health equity for Māori and Pacific peoples, and has received more than $428,000 in the latest funding round for a research fellowship and two project grants.
Her funding is part of the $1.5 million Otago researchers received from the foundation this week, for heart research and specialist training.
"In the past two decades, the rates of heart disease in Aotearoa New Zealand have lowered across all ethnicities.
"However, rates of heart disease are declining less slowly in Māori and Pacific people, indicating this inequity is, in fact, rising," Dr Pearson said.
She is the principal investigator for Hauora Manawa mō ngā Kaumātua me ngā Whānau — a co-designed study based at several Christchurch marae, which focuses on biomarkers of heart disease and echocardiography to directly assess heart health in older Māori.
She said the researchers had an "overwhelmingly good reception" to not only undertaking a study specifically on Māori, but doing it in the community.
"I’d like to have an impact on Māori who have previously avoided going to hospital or the doctor, and find by taking part in our study, they realise our research is done by people who care about the people on the other side of medicines and treatments.
"We very much want to keep involved in the local Māori community with more research that serves them in the future."
Dr Pearson is also the Canterbury principal investigator for a unique collaboration between Otago’s Christchurch Heart Institute, researchers at the University of Auckland, and the Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm and Atrial Fibrillation Screening Project.
As part of this screening project, 900 Māori and Pacific participants are providing blood samples for measurement of specific cardiac biomarkers, which aim to help understand their concentrations and their relationships to heart disease in Māori and Pacific peoples.
"Cardiac biomarkers are central to diagnosing some cardiovascular conditions in routine clinical practice.
"However, diagnostic thresholds used in clinical practice have been derived in predominantly European and American cohorts.
"The distribution of biomarkers in Māori and Pacific peoples is largely unknown, which can lead to significant underdiagnosis of heart failure for Pacific peoples, while it is unclear if the case is the same for Māori."
Dr Pearson was "extremely grateful" for the funding because it would benefit Māori, for whom heart disease was "a big deal".
Heart Foundation grants
Other University of Otago grant recipients were: Dr Nicola Scott ($288,306 and $118,396); Dr Simone Cree ($200,000); Dr Lynley Lewis ($198,187); research Associate Prof Anna Pilbrow ($197,514); Mr Jekhan Saravanan ($76,482); Dr Sarah Appleby ($19,926); Dr Laura Joyce ($16,400); Prof Rachael McLean ($7366); and Dr Rory Miller ($14,927).
