AUT - Professor Elaine Rush
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Professor Elaine Rush
Job position/role
- Professor of Nutrition
- Student supervisor for masters and PhD
Teaching areas
Nutrition health promotion (postgraduate)
Quantitative Skills (postgraduate)
Applied Sport and Exercise Studies (postgraduate)
Current research projects
- Lifecourse model of disease – from conception to chronic disease with attention to vitamin B12 in Indian – collaboration with Dr Ranjan Yajnik, Pune, India
- Metformin vs insulin in treatment of gestational diabetes – follow up of child growth and development with Dr Janet Rowan, National Women’s Health
- Lifestyle and environmental intervention - physical activity, diet and environment. E.g Operation snack attack/Feed Your Need to Succeed
- Metformin in Gestational Diabetes follow up study (funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand)
- Pacific Islands Families Study (funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand, Foundation for Research, Science & Technology, Child Health Foundation) Food, food security and physical activity patterns in relation to growth
- Evaluation of Project Energise: A Waikato District Health Board project aimed at improving the health of primary school children
Research summary
Professor Elaine Rush has been involved in health and education for all her working career. She has an MSc and a PhD in physiology from the University of Auckland and is a registered nutritionist.
Dr Rush has research expertise in the measurement of body composition, energy expenditure, physical activity, nutrition and risk factors for disease. A particular interest in ethnic differences among Maori, Pacific Island, European, Chinese and Indian populations in New Zealand has led to over 75 peer reviewed publications. Elaine also serves on the Councils of a number of nutrition and obesity organisations and is the New Zealand representative for the International Association for the Study of Obesity, IASO. She has been an expert consultant for the World Health Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Nutrition and Health.
Her research projects are directed towards the prevention of disease across the life cycle. In 2004 working with two older NZ Indian community groups a successful programme to reduce risk for cardiovascular disease was undertaken. At present in New Zealand she is looking at the best ways to treat gestational diabetes and in Pune, India is assisting with projects looking at maternal nutrition and effects on future health.
Contact details
+64 9 921 9999 ext 8091
elaine.rush@aut.ac.nz