A University of Waikato student who won a $10,000 Summer Research Scholarship funded by Braemar Charitable Trust has looked at travel problems that could block access to health services.
Mitchell Pincham, a third-year Bachelor of Science student, won a Summer Research Scholarship funded by the Trust. The funds provided a 10-week summer stipend and also provided a small grant for conference travel.
Mitchell won a highly commended award for his work and the poster he produced. He was also one of three students chosen out of 81 to speak at the recent closing function for the research programme.
His work involved coding and data analysis to rapidly determine changes in access to health services, particularly in natural disasters. Mitchell’s work was a subset of his supervisors, Marcus Blake in Australia, and Dr Jesse Whitehead, who is with the Te Ngira Institute for Population Research at the University of Waikato. They have created a base coding programme that can estimate access to health services at the address level.
Mitchell used information from local bodies and NZTA to consider how health service accessibility could be impacted by road delays or closures. He says the programme could be used in one of two ways – for understanding health access in emergencies or natural disasters, or for health planning purposes.
“In an emergency situation such as Cyclone Gabrielle, we would be able to tell which addresses have lost access to pharmacies for important medication, or GPs, or even those who might be cut off from maternity help because their only road access is blocked or has been washed out.”
In planning situations, particularly in rural areas, it could be overlaid with population information to determine new health service sites that are less likely to be completely cut off in natural disasters. “It would be excellent for planning where to distribute new health resources. If there’s a rural community with only one road access to the pharmacy or GP, they will be really vulnerable in a natural disaster – so you would be making decisions with more than one facet of information, population information.”
Mitchell really enjoyed the summer research work and thanks Braemar Charitable Trust for his scholarship funding. Some of the money will help Mitchell, who is considering undertaking a master’s degree next year, attend the National Rural Health Conference in Christchurch this May. He has also been invited to speak to the Braemar Charitable Trust board to showcase his work.
Trust Manager Paula Baker says the Trust’s whole ethos centres on health equity and access and improving health outcomes in communities. “We know rural areas have some populations with high needs anyway and Mitchell’s work could help alleviate this by layering travel and road information on our existing knowledge. His research has wide application and will be useful to inform decisions regarding the timely access to healthcare for people in our region and beyond.”
The Trust has a range of charitable activities it funds, including free community surgeries, scholarships, health sector capability building and medical research, all underpinned by an equity and access lens. It funds four scholarships at the University of Waikato each year – for Bachelors of Health and Nursing students and for summer research and in the 2024-25 financial year has provided more than 150 free surgeries.
Braemar Charitable Trust has made it simple for anyone to donate to its work via a new online donations portal where donors can contribute towards scholarships or research or can choose to fund a specific surgical procedure to help someone in the community, Find out how here
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Caption:
ACCESSING HEALTH: From left, University of Waikato supervisor Dr Jesse Whitehead, Braemar Charitable Trust Manager Paula Baker MNZM, and student Mitchell Pincham pictured at the closing function for the Summer Research Scholarship.
ENDS
Media inquiries – not for publication. For more information contact:
Paula Baker MNZM
Trust Manager, Braemar Charitable Trust
027 224 2316
