Dr Belinda Borell

Belinda Borell (Ngati Ranginui, Ngai Te Rangi, Whakatōhea) has expertise in understanding racism as a social determinant of health. Dr Borell has a broad public health and social science background. She is particularly interested in how structural privilege works to maintain and entrench health and social inequities. She is currently examining how government datasets can be utilised to examine the ways trauma, and privilege, may be passed through generations.

Her doctoral work, The Nature of the Gaze: a conceptual discussion of societal privilege from an indigenous perspective examines how societal privilege shapes health and social inequities that can produce severe consequences for dominant cultural groups as well as marginal. Kaupapa Māori analyses of white privilege can illuminate pathways of redress that will benefit all New Zealanders and provide more embracing perspectives of nationhood. In 2018 Dr Borell was awarded the Hohua Tutengaehe Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Health Research Council of New Zealand to further her research into societal privilege.

In 2024 Dr Borell was awarded an Emerging Māori Health Research Leadership award from the Health Research Council of New Zealand to explore intergenerational transmission of trauma and privilege. She is also committed to building the capabilities of the health workforce to understanding racism as a social determinant of health.
 
 Her Masters thesis, about cultural identity of young Māori in South Auckland can be found here:  Living in the City Ain’t So Bad: Cultural Diversity of South Auckland Rangatahi.