An event later this month will see leading New Zealand experts, Dr Ihirangi Heke and Dr Boyd Swinburn return to the Bay of Plenty to provide an in-depth session for participants who attended the symposium at Te Ohomai Institute of Technology in May of this year.
"We've had huge response from that hui and one highlight was that we got to sit down with these international experts as an organisation," Te Papa Tākaro o Te Arawa Chief Executive, Paora Te Hurihanganui explains.
They got to see some of the work we do, where we are going in the future and possible partnerships going forward."
Paora says what they learned as an organisation was how to utilise computational modelling which is a system where you input data and it can forecast where things are going to go in the future," he says.
"We were shown an example of it, if you put smallpox in a community using data, one could forecast how quickly it could spread. Then if you put a vaccine in, we were able to see, using the data, how that could alleviate the small pox and then eradicate it.
"So for us, if we look at using that kind of data system, we can forecast the impact of Whānau Ora on whānau. If we input it in certain data levels we can forecast sugar change, the influence on smoking cessation; there's a whole range of things we can forecast and the number of influences on that system as opposed to one thing."
Te Papa Tākaro has again facilitated the opportunity for people to have access to hear Dr Heke and Dr Boyd's expertise and experience.
"It's a more intimate opportunity to discuss system science, system thinking and childhood obesity. Dr Boyd is probably the leading doctor in the Southern Hemisphere. We're looking to open that up to the participants who were at the first hui one."
