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Research & Teaching

Publications, conference presentations and teaching by Dr Nicola Harrison on rangatahi Māori mental health, whānau resilience, and halting intergenerational familial childhood sexual abuse.

Dr Nicola Harrison

Journal articles, book chapters and theses

Oct 2025
Journal article

Indigenous youth mental health: an ecological approach to understanding risk and protective factors for Māori youth in Aotearoa New Zealand

BMC Public Health, 25(1):3600

doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-24845-z ↗
Summary

Using Youth’19 data from 1,528 Māori secondary-school students, this study examines mental-health outcomes through an ecological framework spanning individual, whānau, school, neighbourhood and wider social factors. Risk factors include disability, sexual abuse, housing precarity, deprivation, bullying and racial discrimination; protective factors centre on whanaungatanga and feeling safe at home, at school and in the neighbourhood. It argues that reducing Māori youth mental-health inequity means addressing wider structural and colonial conditions, not only individuals.

Mar 2024
Book chapter

Family Relatedness for Māori Survivors of Familial Childhood Sexual Abuse

Relationships and Mental Health: Relational experience in distress and recovery, pp. 61–80, Palgrave Macmillan

doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-50047-3_4 ↗
Summary

Drawing on Kaupapa Māori methodology and pūrākau analysis of interviews with 17 survivors, this chapter examines how Māori survivors of familial childhood sexual abuse draw on Indigenous understandings and practices as sources of resilience. The findings centre on manaakitanga, wairuatanga, kotahitanga and whanaungatanga, and how engaging with te ao Māori can support recovery and protective change within whānau and for future generations.

2024
Doctoral thesis

Ā Mātou Taonga Pīhoretanga: Halting Intergenerational Familial Childhood Sexual Abuse

University of Auckland, ResearchSpace@Auckland

2014
Thesis

So, Who Am I Now? How does the discovery of a family reproductive secret impact understanding of personal identity?

University of Auckland, ResearchSpace@Auckland

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