The Adolescent Health Research Group (AHRG) at the University of Auckland was established in 1997 when a group of researchers at the university began reviewing the information available on the health and wellbeing of young people in New Zealand at that time. It became apparent that a lot of important information was not available because it had never been collected. The information that was available frequently had limitations to its use because the studies were not applicable to New Zealand’s increasingly diverse population.

To overcome these shortcomings, the Adolescent Health Research Group (AHRG) was established with the aim of improving the health and wellbeing of New Zealand’s young people. The first goal of the group was to develop, administer and analyse a health survey to provide current national data on the health and wellbeing of students attending secondary schools in New Zealand.

In 1998, the Health Research Council of New Zealand granted the preliminary funding for this work. This grant was used to gather more information on how best to develop such a survey. Health providers, researchers, government agencies, schools, young people, Maori and Pacific community leaders were consulted in this process. This collaboration resulted in the development of the Youth2000 project and  the first national survey of the health and wellbeing of New Zealand secondary school students was conducted in 2001.  A second national survey was conducted in 2007.

A number of reports and published papers have resulted from these surveys. For more information please follow the link to Publications.

For further information about the AHRG and its members please follow the links