ASPIRE 2025 Co-Director Professor Richard Edwards accepts the award on behalf of the group.
ASPIRE 2025 Co-Director Professor Richard Edwards accepted the Thoracic Society's President's Award at the society's annual conference on the Gold Coast this week.
“We are delighted to receive this recognition of our work, particularly from the Thoracic Society, whose members are dedicated health professionals caring for and treating those most affected by smoking's harms,” he said. “The Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand is one of the key organisations leading efforts to help achieve a Smokefree Aotearoa by 2025.”
"We are delighted to receive this recognition of our work, particularly from the Thoracic Society, whose members are dedicated health professionals caring for and treating those most affected by smoking's harms."
ASPIRE Co-Director Professor Janet Hoek says the group's success illustrates the power of multi-disciplinary mixed-methods research.
“ASPIRE researchers report on complex epidemiological studies through to probing analyses of individuals affected by different policies. This breadth of work has allowed us to offer crucial new insights into the impact current and potential measures have or could have.”
Fellow Co-Director Anaru Waa notes that much still needs to be done before the goal of New Zealand becoming smokefree by 2025 can be realised.
“We are very mindful that our work is far from complete. Striking inequities in smoking prevalence still exist and Māori and Pacific peoples continue to bear a disproportionate burden of harm caused by smoking. As 2025 draws near, we need to increase our efforts to reduce these disparities. We look forward to working with the Thoracic Society to achieve those goals.”
ASPIRE 2025 is a group of researchers working collaboratively to help New Zealand achieve the goal of becoming smokefree by 2025. It is led by researchers from the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, Wellington and the Department of Marketing at the University of Otago, Dunedin.
The group collaborates with AUT and Massey Universities, Whakauae Research, Hāpai te Hauora, Kokiri Marae and ERI. ASPIRE 2025 also works closely with colleagues from the Health Promotion Agency, the Cancer Society of New Zealand and New Zealand Action on Smoking and Health.