Health Promotion Agency:

Summer Studentship Projects

www.hpa.org.nz
The Health Promotion Agency (HPA) is crown entity that leads and delivers
innovative, high quality and cost-effective programmes that promote health,
wellbeing and healthy lifestyles, prevent disease, illness and injury, enable
environments that support health and wellbeing and healthy lifestyles and reduce
personal, social and economic harm. The Research and Evaluation team conducts
work around a range of health topics including tobacco control, sun safety,
minimising gambling harm, nutrition and physical activity and alcohol. The team
leads several surveys, evaluates projects and produces reports and journal articles that
contribute knowledge in these areas.
The Health Promotion Agency has several roles available to postgraduate students for
summer 2014-15. Examples of projects that are available include the following:




























Relationship between Mori health outcomes and wellbeing and Mori cultural
engagement and connectedness
Te Kupenga is a survey on Mori well-being first conducted by Statistics New
Zealand in 2013. It is important as it provides a picture into Mori cultural, social
and economic well-being in New Zealand. The project will explore the relationship
between Mori well-being and health outcomes and Mori cultural engagement and
connectedness factors.

Health and Lifestyles Survey
The Health and Lifestyles Survey (HLS) is a biennial monitor of the health
behaviour and attitudes of New Zealand adults and parents and caregivers of
children. Since 2008, the HLS has collected information across all HPA
programme areas: tobacco control, alcohol, minimising gambling harm, nutrition,
physical activity, sun safety, mental health and immunisation. The project will
provide exposure to survey design and will focus on data analysis and reporting.

Sun Exposure Survey
The Sun Exposure Survey is a triennial, nation-wide survey that has been carried
out since 1994. Seven waves of data include 7,121 adults aged 18 to 54 years as
well as 1,000 teens aged 13 to 17 years. Respondents are sampled based on their
geographic region meeting fine weather criteria for the previous summer
weekend. Question areas include outdoor activities, weather perception, sun
exposure, sun protection behaviours, phenotypic factors (e.g. skin colour), sun
safety campaign recall, and knowledge/attitudes related to tanning, risk perception,
and melanoma. Opportunities to analyse these data include trends in sun exposure
and related attitudes and behaviours.
















































Ethnicity prioritisation case study
Ethnicity prioritisation is commonly used in the health and disability sector. It is a
method of analysis and output of ethnic statistics, particularly used where
comparisons are being made between ethnic groups. Ethnic prioritisation causes
specific ethnicities to be ranked over others. The HPA uses this method. The
project will explore how ethnic priorisation can alter the results of the Youth
Information Survery and/or the Attitudes and Behaviour towards Alcohol Survey
and will compare the differences in the datasets.
New Zealand Smoking Monitor 12-month follow-up survey
The New Zealand Smoking Monitor (NZSM) is a fortnightly survey that has been
in the field since J uly 2011. Each fortnight, 180 telephone interviews are completed
with smokers and recent quitters. In the past, HPA researchers have published
NZSM findings in peer-reviewed journals on topics such as: 1) the behavioural
responses towards tobacco tax increase, 2) support for tobacco display bans, and 3)
the use and acceptability of electronic cigarettes. In 2014, HPA set up a
complementary project that involves re-contacting participants who were
interviewed 12 months ago. The follow-up questionnaire covers a range of topics:
1) quitting experience in the past 12 months, 2) quit intention, 3) smoking-related
attitudes. This project will involve an in-depth analysis of responses collected from
the cohort in 2013 and 2014.


Late onset smoking
Recent evidence shows that young adulthood is a key time for the initiation and
development of smoking behaviours. This project will examine young adult
smoking initiation by using ambulatory assessment techniques to follow people
through their first year out of high school.
Alcohol and smoking relationship
Qualitative studies show that drinking alcohol is tightly linked to smoking. This
project will explore and understand the relationship between drinking and smoking
using data collected from the Health and Lifestyles Survey. This will provide
students opportunities on data analysis and reporting.





How to apply Students will:
Step 1: Identify a project listed above that they are interested in working
on. It may be outside the list but priority will be given to those listed.
Step 2: Identify an academic staff member to co-supervisor the project
with an HPA staff member.
Step 3: Send their CVs and an application form to Sarah Nelson
(s.nelson@hpa.org.nz) by Thursday 23rd October.

Key information
1. Eligibility: To be eligible for a summer studentship project, students
must:
o Be enrolled in a postgraduate qualification (excluding a PhD) at a
New Zealand university in 2014.
o Identify a suitable academic supervisor willing to co-supervise the
project with an HPA staff member (thus students must be willing to
approach and engage with university staff).
2. Students can undertake their project in Wellington or in the city where
their academic co-supervisor is located. Priority will be given to those
students who undertake their project in Wellington.
3. Projects can be undertaken full- or part-time between November and
February.
4. The student will be paid by the HPA on an hourly basis for the work
undertaken at a rate of $16.60.


For any further information or an application form please contact Sarah
Nelson from Health Promotion Agency at s.nelson@hpa.org.nz.






Conditions
1. The summer studentships will be offered and approved by the Health
Promotion Agency.
2. The student must be co-supervised by a qualified New Zealand university
academic staff member.
3. Students must have been enrolled in a postgraduate qualification (excluding a
PhD) at a New Zealand university in 2014.
4. The summer studentships will be paid by HPA on an hourly basis of $16.60.
5. Each summer studentship will only be entitled to receive a maximum of
$8000.
6. Students can only work a maximum of 40 hours a week between 1 November
2014 and 28 February 2015.
7. Students do not have to undertake the summer studentship all summer.
Students can propose to do the project full- or part-time for all summer or just
for part of the time period.
8. Students will be paid fortnightly and will be required to pay taxes.
9. The student will be required to complete a fortnightly timesheet.
10. Periods of research activity and holidays will be negotiated with the HPA
supervisor and academic co-supervisor (HPA is closed from 24 December
2014 to 5 J anuary 2015).
11. Any work undertaken during the HPA shutdown period (24 December 2014 to
5 J anuary 2015) will not paid.
12. During the summer studentship period, students must not be receiving any
alternative scholarship support.
13. The student agrees to complete an agreed work plan with defined research
outputs in consultation with the supervisor.
14. Students can undertake their project in Wellington or in the city where their
academic co-supervisor is located. However, priority will be given to those
students who undertake their project in Wellington.
15. HPA will not contribute to travel, accommodation, or the costs of being based
in Wellington.
16. Students acknowledge that they cannot undertake any undergraduate or
postgraduate studies at any university or institution during the term of the
summer studentship.
17. The student acknowledges that the studentship may be terminated at any time
at the sole discretion of the HPA on the recommendation of the HPA
supervisor or the co-academic supervisor for:
o failure by the student to make satisfactory progress in the approved
programme of research;
o any breach of any HPA rule, regulation or agreement or
o any breach of these regulations by the student.






Summer Studentship Application 2014-2015 Application Form

Applicant details
Student name:
Email address:
Phone number:
Degree & stage currently
enrolled in 2014:

University/Institute:


Project details
Project title
Name of supervisor(s):
Supervisor department(s) and
university:

Supervisor email:
Supervisor phone number:
Student availability (such as
fulltime or part-time and
months available over summer
such as December to February
or February only)



For any further information please contact Sarah Nelson from Health
Promotion Agency at s.nelson@hpa.org.nz.