Academic research
Jane’s research focuses on workforce sustainability, professional practice and rural contexts, with a strong emphasis on lived experience and practical relevance.
Core research areas
Connect with meRural and remote workforce sustainability
Understanding the factors that shape recruitment and retention in rural health settings, moving beyond individual incentives to examine the systemic, organisational and relational conditions that determine whether professionals stay or leave.
Allied health workforce visibility and development
Addressing the significant gap in Aotearoa research on allied health, scientific and technical professions. Jane’s published work was the first authored in Aotearoa to specifically examine rural allied health workforce recruitment and retention and she remains one of very few researchers focused on this critical area.
Professional identity, belonging and whanaungatanga
Exploring how connection, community integration and professional identity shape workforce outcomes and how organisations can foster the conditions for belonging rather than treating it as a fortunate byproduct.
Safe and sustainable practice environments
Examining what it takes to create practice environments that are not only clinically safe but professionally sustainable including supervision, scope of practice, workload design and professional development access.
Power, hierarchy and system design
Critically analysing how professional hierarchies, urban-centric policy assumptions and resource allocation patterns create and maintain workforce inequities particularly for allied health professionals in rural settings.
Wendy Elwood, Runanga
Research partnerships
University partnerships
Jane maintains active research connections with universities in Aotearoa and Australia. She has taught and facilitated health and social policy development through two of Aotearoa’s leading universities, holds an Adjunct position with Flinders University, as well as developing relationships with other Australian universities.
Research supervision
Jane provides supervision and supports emerging researchers navigating health workforce and rural health topics.
Policy and sector engagement
Jane’s research informs her engagement with government agencies, sector bodies and health organisations working to improve workforce outcomes. She has contributed to Manatū Hauora | Ministry of Health and Te Whatu Ora | Health New Zealand research and evaluation, and sector strategy development.
Jane welcomes approaches from researchers, institutions and organisations interested in collaborating on rural workforce, allied health and health equity research.
FAQ’s
Connect with meIs Jane available for research supervision?
Jane provides research, professional and clinical supervision. She welcomes conversations about research supervision or mentoring arrangements in her areas of expertise.
Can Jane contribute to grant applications or research proposals?
Yes, Jane is open to collaborating on research proposals in her areas of expertise, particularly those with an applied focus on workforce sustainability, rural health or allied health development.
Does Jane publish her research openly?
Where possible, yes Jane aims to make her research publications available as open-access articles.
Publications & outputs
Learning from those who have gone before: strengthening the rural allied health workforce in Aotearoa New Zealand
Understanding the Complexities of Recruitment and Retention of Allied Health Professionals in Rural Health Settings
Connection, momentum, and growth: Exploring the benefits and challenges of ‘shut up & research’ for researcher wellbeing
