Hawkes Bay Health and Wellbeing after Cyclone Gabrielle

Understanding the impact of Cyclone Gabrielle on health and wellbeing to assess health service responsiveness.

The Need
Cyclone Gabrielle had a devastating and widespread impact on the communities across Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti. Within the recovery efforts is the need to understand how people’s health and wellbeing were affected by the disaster and how the health system can best respond to adverse weather events.

The Approach
This research project uses two key methods of data collection, underpinned by the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 – 2030:

• Qualitative in depth interviews and focus groups will be undertaken with communities directly impacted by the events
• Quantitative database analysis of service utilisation against forecasting to determine the impact on health outcomes — specifically cancer, the first 1000 days, chronic conditions, including, where feasible, mental health. 

The study is currently in its establishment phase of getting ethics approval from The University of Auckland.

Research Aims
This multi-method study is in partnership with community stakeholders in the Tairawhiti and Hawkes Bay and it aims to

• Develop a better understanding of the scope and scale of the health and wellbeing impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle
• Assess health service responsiveness immediately and following the event.

“Being able to advance our knowledge about the inter-connections between health, wellbeing and community needs during adverse weather events and support the recovery and rebuilding of communities after Cyclone Gabrielle is essential to prepare for future disasters in Aotearoa New Zealand and that’s why we’ve made a significant investment in this research. The findings will be used in conjunction with other relevant research and agency work to implement and build on Aotearoa New Zealand’s disaster response knowledge base.”
– Dr Ian Town, Chief Science Advisor at Manatū Hauora – Ministry of Health

Photo: Red Cross / NZ Herald

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