The Carosika Collaborative belongs to everyone who wants to improve preterm birth outcomes in Aotearoa. Our mahi covers a broad area, so we rely on whānau, community, healthcare professionals, healthcare services, researchers, policy-makers and funders to work together to achieve success. We work with an overarching principle of ‘achieving equity in a culturally responsive way’.
The Carosika Collaborative Steering Group and the Whānau with Lived Experience Group guide, oversee, co-ordinate, and support our mahi across the Collaborative.
Education and Promotion
We enable, support and advocate for the education, promotion and implementation of best practice and evidence-based care for all wāhine/people, pēpi and whānau at risk of, and/or affected by, preterm birth.
Our national best practice guide, Taonga Tuku Iho provides healthcare professionals across Aotearoa with an up-to-date, evidence-based, practical guide for preterm birth care. It includes recommendations and resources on spontaneous and provider-initiated preterm birth and for the prediction, prevention and preparation for preterm birth.
The Carosika Collaborative hosts regular educational events designed for healthcare professionals and whānau. These include in-person events, webinars and on-line resources.
This website provides health promotion information about preterm birth for a general audience, resources for wāhine/people and whānau and signposts to recommended relevant educational events hosted by other groups and institutions.
Advocacy and Community Engagement
We aim to provide the national expert voice on preterm birth across all stakeholder groups. We are establishing meaningful and strong relationships with wāhine/people and whānau, community and whānau groups, perinatal healthcare professionals, Māori, Pacific and Indian healthcare services, hospital services, policy-makers and funders.
Carosika Collaborative advocacy activities include collective expert opinion review and comment on relevant national guidelines (for example, Manatū Hauora guideline for hypertension in pregnancy and pre-eclampsia and Manatū Hauora guideline on consultation with obstetric and medical services), submissions to the Minister of Health on matters related to preterm birth (for example, on the disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora and repeal of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Act), endorsement and support for preterm birth related research grants, media opportunities to raise the profile of issues relating to preterm birth and equity, and advocacy regarding accuracy of ethnicity reporting in national and bi-national datasets.
We are very happy to consider opportunities where we may be able to provide advocacy support to individuals, groups, communities and institutions on matters relating to preterm birth and its impact.
Research and Measurement of Impact
We support and promote high-quality research that is culturally responsive and specific to the needs of wāhine/people, pēpi and whānau and that has potential to improve outcomes of preterm birth.
The Carosika Collaborative has identified priority research areas for which we have, or will, develop and support investigator groups. To date, the most significant of these is the Health Research Council/ Manatū Hauora funded Taonga Tuku Iho, Knowledge Translation for Equity in Preterm Birth Care and Outcomes in Aotearoa Project which supported:
- An enablers and barriers study,
- Research to identify high-quality clinical practice guidelines to inform Taonga Tuku Iho, our national best practice guide,
- The development of a Carosika Core Outcome Set
- The development of Carosika Metrics to measure future impact.
Our research page (under development) describes this and other research we support in more detail, as well as listing some priority research ideas.
We also support and consider endorsement of other investigator groups completing research relevant to preterm birth in Aotearoa. We are happy to be approached regarding this. Our support requires commitment to some core principles such as the inclusion of Māori, Pacific or Indian named investigators and/or consultation with these communities, inclusion of equity considerations and the use of positive framing in reporting.
Funding and Resources
We continue to seek sustainable central funding to progress the mahi of the Carosika Collaborative. We also advocate for funding for preterm birth research and allied projects and for equitable resourcing of preterm birth services across Aotearoa.
Through the creation of Taonga Tuku Iho, our national best practice guide, we have created a large number of resources that can be shared across all preterm birth care and pregnancy healthcare services and professionals in Aotearoa. This enables more consistent information and care nationally and supports units, in particular smaller ones, and independent practitioners who may not have capacity to produce their own. We are very happy to consider collaborations with others to provide further shared resources in the future.
If you would like to support our mahi, you can donate here