Sir Mason Durie

Mason Durie is from New Zealand and is a member of the Rangitane and Ngati Kauwhata (Maori) tribes. He graduated in medicine in 1963 and completed a psychiatric residency at McGill University in 1970. He was subsequently appointed Director of Psychiatry at the Palmerston North Hospital and was made a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry in 1979.

He was an inaugural member of the New Zealand Mental Health Foundation and pioneered community mental health programmes in New Zealand, with a particular focus on indigenous communities. From 1986-1988 he was a Commissioner on the Royal Commission on Social Policy and was appointed to the chair in Maori Studies at Massey University in 1988. He has been actively engaged in mental health research and policy for more than two decades and in 1993 established a Maori Health Research Centre that has provided national leadership in outcomes research and research into mental health service delivery.

Professor Durie has served on a number of health committees and has been Chair of the National Health Committee as well as a Commissioner for the New Zealand Families Commission. He heads a Parliamentary taskforce that is investigating options for an integrated approach to family-based health and social services, and also chairs a Health Research Council committee concerned with establishing mental health promotion and mental health care within the primary health care sector.

He has published many articles on indigenous health, mental health, the determinants of health and the links between good health and wider societal attitudes including discriminatory practices and the impacts of affirmative action. He is involved in several major health research programmes including a mental health prevalence study, two family-based longitudinal studies, a mental health outcomes study, and an Health Research Council funded investigations into positive ageing and alternative therapies. He has played a significant national role in mental health workforce development and has been a strong advocate for the recognition of cultural competence and cultural safety.

Professor Durie is currently Professor of Maori Research and Development and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Massey University.