Research and evidence

Disability research can be conducted using a range of approaches and methods but it is critical that disabled people are central at all stages of the research process. Evidence gathered through high quality disability research is often translated into meaningful insights to inform and transform policy and practice.

This section includes evaluations. of research that has been undertaken.

Examples of reports 

• Statistics NZ - Measuring Inequality for disabled New Zealanders
  Measuring inequality for disabled New Zealanders: 2018 compares a range of home, economic, and social outcomes for disabled and non-disabled people in New Zealand.
  
  
• Disabled Person-led Monitoring of the UNCRPD Project
  Website explaining what is meant by disabled person lead monitoring research and holds a summary of the work undertaken to date. The website includes links to the monitoring reports published.
  
  
• Ministry of Justice/Waitangi Tribunal - Māori Health Disability Statistics Report (PDF)
  This publication presents aggregated demographic information about the people with disabilities who have been allocated Ministry of Health funded disability supports during a 12-month period to September 2018. The report presents demographics relating to specific service types including home and community support, carer support, supported living, respite, behaviour support, choices in community living, individualised funding, enhanced individualised funding, funded family care, community residential, younger people in aged residential care, day services and high and complex framework. The report also presents the demographic information by specific disability types including physical, intellectual, autism spectrum disorder, neurological and sensory disabilities, and includes some comparisons with the Ministry’s disability demographic report published in 2016.
  
  
• Department of Internal Affairs – Digital Inclusion User Insights – Disabled People
  The research report — Digital inclusion user insights — Disabled people — gives disabled people a voice and outlines their lived experience in terms of being digitally enabled. It outlines 5 key findings which could help improve the design of websites and online services, making an impact on how disabled people experience digital.
  
  
• Child Poverty Action Group – Early childhood education and barriers to inclusivity (PDF)
  This backgrounder considers pre-school children with disabilities and their access to and participation in ECCE in Aotearoa New Zealand. It highlights problems associated with their rights to equal participation in early childhood education alongside their non-disabled peers and looks at the troubling relationship between targeted funding for attendance and exclusion.
  
  
• Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet – Child and Youth Strategy (PDF)
  An overaching framework for central government policy development to support achieving the vision of 'making New Zealand the best place in the world for children and young people.
  
  
• New Zealand Health and Disability System Review- Health and Disability System Review Final Report (PDF)
  Report on the Health and Disability System Review which recommends system level changes to improve equitable outcomes for New Zealanders. Chapter 8 covers disability and uses the 2013 NZ Disability Survey and Disability Support Services Data
  
  
• Enabling Good Lives - Waikato demonstration evaluations
  Enabling Good Lives is a partnership between government agencies and the disability sector aimed at long term transformation of how disabled people and families are supported to live everyday lives. These reports are for the Waikato demonstration, but Enabling Good Lives is also in Christchurch and further information is available on the EGL website. 

• New Zealand Transport Agency – Research Report 669 Transport Impacts on Wellbeing and Liveability
  This research set out to show how the transport sector contributes to better living conditions for all New Zealand citizens through investment in related capital. Maximum wellbeing benefits will be achieved by ensuring that everyone has access to high quality, low-carbon, transport systems that promote health and social connection and generate high levels of travel satisfaction. The built environment, especially urban density, has a significant impact on the viability of active and public transport systems.
  
  
• He Ara Oranga Mental Health Inquiry
  The Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction was announced early in 2018. The catalyst for the inquiry was widespread concern about mental health services, within the mental health sector and the broader community, and calls for a wide-ranging inquiry from service users, their families and whānau, people affected by suicide, people working in health, media, Iwi and advocacy groups.
  
  
• Be Lab – Access 2020 report
  To gain a deeper understanding of exactly which aspects of society are not accessible, and where the biggest improvement could be made, Be Lab worked with research agency Cogo to survey nearly 1,500 New Zealanders on the accessibility of public activities and events as well as attitudes and social norms around accessibility.
  
  
• Donald Beasley Institute Website Publications - research methodologies
  The Donald Beasley Institute  is recognised nationally and internationally as a leader in the field of disability research, with particular expertise in learning (intellectual) disability. They are committed to ethical, inclusive and transformative research and projects that promote the rights of disabled people. They hold a variety of information on their publications website.
  
  
• American Journal of Preventive Medicine – Lifetime Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence
  This study compares the reported lifetime prevalence of intimate partner violence (physical, sexual, psychological, controlling behaviors, and economic abuse) for people with different types of disabilities with that reported by those without disabilities and tests whether there is a gender difference.
  
  
• Haitana, T., Pitama, S., Cormack, D. Clarke, M. & Lacey, C. (2020). - The Transformative Potential of Kaupapa Maori Research and Indigenous Methodologies: Positioning Maori Patient Experiences of Mental Health Services
  This article presents a description of a specific Indigenous research methodology, Kaupapa Māori Research (KMR), followed by a discussion of the potential contribution that KMR and other Indigenous frameworks make toward understanding and addressing widespread mental health inequities affecting the world’s Indigenous peoples.
  
  
• Levack, W. M., Jones, B., Grainger, R., Boland, P., Brown, M., & Ingham, T. R. (2016) Whakawhanaungatanga: the importance of culturally meaningful connections to improve uptake of pulmonary rehabilitation by Māori with COPD – a qualitative study. 
  This paper explores the interactions between ethnicity and uptake of health care services in the context of pulmonary rehabilitation for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in New Zealand.

Guidance

• National Ethical Standards for Health and Disability Research
  The National Ethical Standards will help all researchers including new researchers and in-training researchers, foster awareness of ethical principles and enhance more rapid translation of research into clinical practice and health services delivery
  
  
• Health Research Council of New Zealand - Guidelines for Researchers on Health Research Involving Māori (PDF)
  These Guidelines intend to assist researchers undertaking biomedical, public health or clinical research involving Māori participants or research on issues relevant to Māori health. It is expected that all those who undertake research involving Māori will read these Guidelines prior to making a submission to an ethics committee.
  
  
• Washington Group - publications about Washington Group tools (free access)
  A list of published journal articles, books (including book chapters and proceedings) and reports that focus on the tools developed by the Washington Group’
  
  
• National Ethics Advisory Committee – Disability Research
  Guidance on what disability research is, designing disability research and facilitating disabled peoples participation
  
  
• CCS Disability Action Research webpage
  A website hosting a list of published reports, research and articles focusing on disabled children and young people.
  
  
• Involving disabled people in social research (Guidance from the United Kingdom) (PDF)
  This guidance includes information and advice on understanding disability, involving disabled people, involving disabled people in each stage of the research process, accessible and inclusive research design, conducting accessible survey fieldwork, tips for running accessible meetings.
  
  
• UNICEF Exploring Critical Issues in the Ethical Involvement of Children with Disabilities in Evidence generation and Use
  This research brief details the main ethical challenges and corresponding mitigation strategies identified in the literature with regard to the ethical involvement of children with disabilities in evidence generation activities.
  
  
• National Disability Research Partnership’s Disability Research Collection (Guidance from Australia)
  The Collection aims to share evidence and knowledge on a range of topics to help advance the rights of people with disability and is designed to help improve policies and practices.