Harkness Project Title: Reducing Ethnic Disparities in Health: A Comparison between New Zealand and the U.S.

Mentor: Andrew Bindman, M.D.

Placement: University of California, San Francisco

Biography at time of Harkness Fellowship: Colin F. Tukuitonga, D.S.M., a 2000-01 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy, is director of the Pacific Health Research Centre, chief of the Division of Public Health, Primary Health Care and Mental Health in the School of Medicine, and senior lecturer in Community and Pacific Health at the University of Auckland.  He is also a practicing physician. He has dual fellowships in general practice (family medicine) and public health medicine.  Tukuitonga's research interests include access to and quality of primary care, health issues affecting Pacific peoples, child health, and health services effectiveness. He has served on a number of New Zealand Government Working Parties that address a variety health policy topics. He recently served as a member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Health and Disability Support Services and as chairman of the Pacific Committee of the Health Research Council of New Zealand.  Based at San Francisco General Hospital during his Harkness Fellowship, Tukuitonga is comparing U.S. and New Zealand strategies to reduce disparities in health outcomes for minorities

Career Activity Since Fellowship

• Chief Executive, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, 2007
• Associate Professor of Public Health, Auckland University, 2006
• Director of Global Research on Obesity, WHO, 2003
• Director of Public Health, New Zealand’s Ministry of Health, 2001

Current Position: Chief Executive, Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, New Zealand. (Updated August 2010)

E-Mail: c.tukuitonga@gmail.com

Harkness-Related Publications

Tukuitonga C, Bindman AB. "Ethnic and Gender Differences in the Use of Coronary Artery Revascularization Procedures in New Zealand," New Zealand Medical Journal 2002. 115:179–82.