Publications

It's long been understood that a good start in life is important, but now a growing body of research demonstrates how significant parental mental health in particular is to long-term family and whānau wellbeing. Mental distress during the perinatal period (from the beginning of pregnancy until a year after birth) can have severe long-term consequences, not only for parents in distress, but also for their babies.

This is a concerning finding at a time when DHBs report increasing complexity of maternal mental health needs and high unmet need for support. However, it also presents an important opportunity: if we can understand what contributes to this distress, and put in place policies to actively remove or alleviate it, we can not only support mothers and parents who are struggling, but also significantly improve intergenerational outcomes - a critical public policy challenge and the subject of a current Productivity Commission inquiry.

Associate Fellow Holly Walker has been leading our research in this area. In April 2022 we published our report, Āhurutia Te Rito, looking at what contributes to perinatal distress in Aotearoa New Zealand and identifying opportunities to better support new parents and their babies. It focused in particular on how to support and enable community-led solutions. You can read the report here. On 28th July we hosted a public webinar to share key insights and recommendations from this report.

In September we will host a policy roundtable. Our goal is to support policy change that restores and enhances the special status of parents, pēpī, and whānau at this crucial time.

This work  has been carried out with the generous support of The Tindall Foundation and the Rātā Foundation.

Aotearoa New Zealand has Scandinavian expectations of the welfare state but a short term attitude to investment and taxation.

Together with NZIER, we propose to produce a paper focusing on the main sector which underpins Aotearoa New Zealand’s wealth – the primary sector – in the context of lifting productivity during the COVID recovery.

Aotearoa needs low-traffic neighbourhoods and cities to reduce emissions, improve road safety, and to create the connected urban communities we need in a post-pandemic future. We need urban design decisions that focus on safety so that urban public spaces are open to everyone.

In this research stream, we set out why transport matters for equity, illustrate why reducing car dependence is the key to decarbonising urban transport, explain the risks of pursuing rapid decarbonisation without adequately considering equity, and lay out a path for how Aotearoa New Zealand can transition to the connected, low-traffic cities we need.

We also consider how denser city living, which will be an increasingly important feature of Aotearoa New Zealand’s cities in future, increases demand for urban public spaces. This demand exacerbates existing inequities that impact on how safe we feel, which we suggest can be addressed through coordinated urban design decisions.

We take this urban focus because, as we outlined in a recent report about Aotearoa New Zealand’s diaspora and demographic trends, nearly three quarters of Aotearoa New Zealand’s population growth in the next 30 years will happen in cities. Tāmaki Makarau Auckland alone will account for half this growth. By 2048, there will be almost one million more people living in our cities than there were in 2018.

This growth places increasing pressure on our urban infrastructure and creates demand for new investment, including new and improved transport infrastructure and public spaces.

Drug use is a reality in New Zealand, and the results of our current policy approach damage our health, worsen social equity, and drive crime. The status quo is unacceptable, and our research explores how we can do better.