EIT’s School of Health and Sport Science is focused on accelerating health outcomes for the community, with lecturers conducting meaningful local research.
Accelerating health outcomes in the community is a focus for EIT’s School of Health and Sport Science, with lecturers conducting meaningful local research.
Dr Helen Ryan-Stewart, EIT’s Executive Dean, Education, Humanities and Health Science and until recently the acting Head of the School of Health and Sport Science, says like many tertiary institutions, research is important to EIT. Research helps lecturers stay up-to-date on the latest developments in their field, ensuring they provide students with the most current and relevant knowledge. It can also provide an important community link to address local challenges.
Helen’s role as the Head of School has been taken by Dr Andrew Garrett, who comes to EIT with a research pedigree, having been Sport, Health and Exercise Science Programme Director and Graduate Research Director at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom.
Andrew’s main area of research expertise is the markers of fatigue in temperature regulation during exercise in the time of climate change and he was an Associate Member of the Hull York Medical School (HYMS). His PhD work was funded by the Australian Military based at the University of Otago in New Zealand (Induction and decay of heat acclimation) and in collaboration with the Otago Medical School. His current research interest focuses on practical methods for the prevention of heat injury in older populations.
Helen says that research will continue to be an important part of the School. At present the School has a combined research committee with the School of Nursing, which has resulted in health being a focus for research.
“The research we do has a health science focus and anything that we were going to do would be aimed at accelerating health outcomes in our community.”
A significant project which is having an impact on the Hawke’s Bay community is research that is addressing the epidemic of youth vaping among intermediate and high school students.
The project has been led by Associate Professor Anita Jagroop-Dearing and was funded by Health Research Foundation Hawke’s Bay and EIT. It also received a funding boost from Health Research Council (HRC) of New Zealand. The initial project was entitled Actions to Vaporise Rangatahi Vaping in Te Matau-a-Māui. Recently the project was extended outside the region following interest from a Bay of Plenty High School.
A project in the early stages of development, is being conducted by researcher and lecturer Dr Patrick Lander. It looks at green spaces in urban areas and how people use those for well-being and health.
Helen says that while the School has a strategy around health research, there are also researchers who focus on sport and exercise. Working in this field is Mike Schofield, a lecturer in strength and conditioning, who is the coach of New Zealand shot-putter Maddison-Lee Wesche, who won a silver medal at the Olympic Games earlier this year.
Mike’s area of research is biomechanics and it is about evolving a technical model from a theoretical basis. His research is aimed at allowing top-level athletes to reach their full potential.
Another lecturer who is an active researcher is Associate Professor Carl Paton, who is involved in a number of research projects with students. These projects are focused on high performance cycling.
Helen says it is important that academic staff are research active.
“Degrees in institutions such as ours should be taught by staff active in relevant applied research. Sport, exercise and health is focused on application to the real world. So we have to enable our academic staff to do research that’s relevant to the field, the discipline that they’re teaching. That keeps them current, and gives students real-world examples of how they could apply their knowledge.”
“And that’s really important from my perspective.”