Building on the highly successful indigenous panel session at our 2009 conference, the Association has invited two indigenous health researchers to be co-opted onto the Executive Committee: Dr Amohia Boulton (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngai Te Rangi and Ngāti Pukenga) and Ms Kim O’Donnell (Malyangapa/Barkindji, NSW). Their role will be to advise and assist the Association to engage better with indigenous health researchers and to create an Association that values and respects indigenous health researchers’ knowledge and skills.
Amohia Boulton (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngai te Rangi, Ngāti Pukenga, from the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand) is a Senior Researcher at Whakauae Research for Māori Health and Development; a small, tribally-based research centre located in Whanganui.
Amohia has a background in public policy and worked as a Senior Policy Analyst at Te Puni Kōkiri (the Ministry of Māori Affairs) and Private Secretary (Māori Affairs) before taking up a Health Research Council Māori Training Fellowship to undertake her doctorate. Amohia’s doctoral work examined the contracting experience of community-based, Māori mental health providers, while her postdoctoral research took her to the University of Northern British Columbia where she was able to explore the challenges of contracting in indigenous health in greater depth.
Amohia’s 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. Amohia has been a named investigator on a number of HRC and DHB-funded 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 also a member of the Māori Health Committee of the Health Research Council of New Zealand and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Health Services Research Centre, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington.
Kim O’Donnell is a Research Associate of Health Care Management in the Flinders University School of Medicine.
She is a Malyangapa/ Barkindji woman from Western NSW, Australia and was Chairperson of the Mutawintji National Park Board of Management from 2004-2009. Mutawintji is the first jointly managed national park in NSW to be returned to the Aboriginal owners in 1998.
Kim has a teaching background, has lived and worked in rural/ remote Australia and Japan and became involved in health care research after completing a Primary Health Care Masters in 2006. From 2007-2009, Kim was a researcher of the Overburden Project that investigated the complex funding and regulation of Primary Health Care for Aboriginal & Torres Strait people. The Overburden Report: Contracting for Indigenous Health Services (in Australia) provides 5 principles and ways to evaluate good funding practice and regulation of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled Health Services. Kim is passionate about doing work that improves leadership, self determination and governance within Aboriginal organisations and has been accepted into Flinders University, Australia, to complete a Doctorate of Public Health.
Kim and Amohia are setting up a special interest group and are contributing regular articles to our Newsletter.
IHSRG Terms of Reference
Newsletter Article 1
Newsletter Article 2
If you are interested in Indigenous Health Services Research or would like to be involved in the Indigenous Groupd please contact either Kim or Amohia.