Rheumatic Heart Disease Wānanga 2026: Transforming health research into practice
14–15 October 2026 | Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington
Pictured: Wānanga participants
On 14–15 October 2026, around 80 people came together in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington for a national wānanga focused on rheumatic fever (RF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The Wānanga brought together people with lived experience and whānau, researchers, clinicians, Māori and Pacific health providers, policy makers, funders and health sector leaders. Across two days, participants shared current research and emerging evidence, heard directly from whānau, considered how research can be translated into practice, and identified priorities for improving prevention, care and service delivery.
A group of 10 people with lived experience of RF/RHD and whānau also took part in a dedicated kōrero. The group shared what has worked, what has been difficult, and what they wanted researchers, clinicians and decision-makers to hear. These insights were fed back into the wider Wānanga and informed the discussions that followed.
What we heard
Three overarching themes came through strongly across the Wānanga:
Whānau voice and leadership: Listen to whānau and, importantly, act on what they tell us. Lived experience should help shape research, services and decisions.
A connected, flexible system of care: Give whānau real choice about when, where and how they receive care, including choice of secondary prophylaxis such as SCIP, and share and scale models of care that are already working around the motu.
A pathway to prevention and elimination: Identify what we need to do and what research is needed to reduce the ARF/RHD curve in Aotearoa and work towards elimination – including addressing poverty and housing, strengthening health promotion, progressing vaccine development, and better understanding and preventing Strep A throat and skin infections.
Wānanga resources
Presentations: Presentations across the two days covered current and emerging RF/RHD research, prevention, secondary prophylaxis, models of care, research translation and future priorities.
Visual scribe: The discussions and key messages from the Wānanga were captured visually throughout the two days.
What happens next?
The Wānanga was not intended to be the end of the conversation. The lived experience kōrero, workshop priorities and wider discussions will now inform the development of a Call to Action for RF/RHD in Aotearoa.
In early 2027, a group will come back together to review and prioritise what we heard across the two days and begin developing a Call to Action for RF/RHD in Aotearoa.
The Call to Action will identify priority areas for research and action to prevent ARF and RHD and work towards elimination, alongside opportunities to improve care and provide greater choice and flexibility for whānau.
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