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Using the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) to investigate or research various social, cultural, health, or other related outcomes is appealing and has a lot of potential. The IDI offers sufficient numbers for researchers to investigate outcomes in Pacific communities to a level of detail not available in many studies. Additionally, it allows organisations to upload their own data to supplement measures in the IDI. The overall aim of this paper is discuss the appropriate values for research projects involving Pacific communities using IDI data; issues around ownership of data from Pacific communities; consent; identification; and other ethical considerations. Although the IDI has a great deal of potential for Pacific health research, many findings based on research using IDI data have been recognised as deficit-framed and polarising for the communities they describe. Some would argue that such findings highlight discrepancies in health or social equity and point to deficiencies that should be the responsibility of governmental organisations. Most analyses stop short of investigating practical pathways for communities to find solutions that are sympathetic to the values or established infrastructure of those communities. Instead, most communities found themselves characterised by deficit and feeling solely responsible for their poor situation. This paper proposes an extension to the Tivaivai/Tivaevae research framework and shows how it incorporates values that should be reflected in Pacific research using IDI data. With applications in a range of disciplines, the Tivaivai framework, like many Pacific research models, has been applied to quantitative or small mixed-methods projects, and usually restricted to Cook Islands research. This paper shows its usefulness can be applied to a strictly quantitative research framework, making it sympathetic to wider Pacific values as well as consistent with other familiar Pacific research frameworks. These concepts will be incorporated into a research project for an HRC funded Post-doctoral study investigating the value of education to health outcomes for Pacific families. It is hoped that this paper may provide a starting point for other quantitative Pacific research projects involving administrative or other big data.

The stakes for understanding sleep practices are rising as health inequalities related to sleep become more apparent. Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand face disproportionate challenges around poverty and health and sleep is one growing area of importance in addressing health inequalities. Through a qualitative study of 17 Pacific families in Aotearoa New Zealand, we provide a rare and valuable glimpse into the familial, cultural, social and economic context of sleep for Pacific families and children in New Zealand. These Pacific families uphold a core value of responsiveness to family, community, culture and faith. These values feed wellbeing in a variety of ways, especially when health is considered through Pacific, holistic frameworks. These families apply the same responsiveness to economic pressures, often taking on shiftwork. We show how responsiveness to family and culture, as well as limited economic means, permeates sleep practices within these Pacific households. These broader shaping factors must be acknowledged, considered, respected and integrated into any healthy sleep initiatives and interventions, in order to ensure benefit - and not harm - is achieved.

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We are drawn to this Talanoa in response to the call from Pacific Health Dialogue for frank and open discussion. Our contribution to the conversation is some reflections about our experience of academic health research as a collective of Māori and Pacific researchers trying to navigate within a large national research programme. Alongside this we will share the voyaging framework we developed to help locate ourselves as a collective, and articulate our needs and aspirations as early to mid-career researchers. Our collective met in the context of working with A Better Start – E tipu e rea, a National Science Challenge created by the New Zealand government.1 Better Start focuses on the health of children and young people across five key areas; healthy weight, resilient teens, successful literacy and learning, big data and Vision Mātauranga. Our team came together as collaborators within the Big Data theme, to explore the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) as an area of possibility and challenge for both Māori and Pacific communities.