Scholarship Awarded to Taranaki Health Promoter

19th October 2009

Taranaki DHB Health Promoter Marnie Reinfeld has been awarded a $15,000 scholarship to undertake research into how Maori women can be better supported to breastfeed their babies.

The Health Research Council of New Zealand scholarship will help Marnie complete her Masters in Public Health.

Marnie said she was flattered to be awarded the scholarship. “I feel that the scholarship validates the research that I want to do - It’s a prestigious organisation. The panel consisted of people I look up to - they’re my heroes.”

Marnie plans to follow the footsteps of her mother, Mahinekura Reinfeld, a well-known Taranaki advocate of Maori health and wellbeing who died in 2007.

Mahinekura was involved with a project that had previously received funding from the Health Research Council. “My long-term goal is to continue my mother’s research,” Marnie said.

The scholarship will go towards costs associated with her research, which will take a year to complete.  

The research will include interviewing Maori women and whanau about what community support they need to breastfeed.

Marnie, who works in the Taranaki DHB Health Promotion Unit, said her own experience of breastfeeding prompted her interest in carrying out the research. She breastfed her two young children until they were six months old. “I would’ve continued for longer I knew then what I know now.”

The Health Research Council of New Zealand is the Crown agency responsible managing the Government's investment in public good health research.
 
For more information please call

Contact Sue Carrington
Taranaki DHB Media Advisor
Tel 021 367 789

Last updated: Tuesday, November 24, 2009