In August 2015 MBIE approved funding for the Heathier Lives National Science Challenge (HLNSC), with a budget of $31.26 million over 10 years.

[2] Additional funding came from collaborations: the Long Term Conditions partnership with the Health Research Council and the Ministry of Health established five research projects with a total budget of $7.9 million,[3][4] and a partnership equally funded by HLNSC and the Heart Foundation supported a $2 million three-year study, Manawataki Fatu Fatu, on cardiovascular disease inequities amongst Māori and Pasifika.

[9] At the time of establishment, the stated goal of Healthier Lives was to reduce the overall burden of these diseases on New Zealand's health system by 25% by the year 2025.

[10] This strategy addressed three areas: precision medicine for cancer and cardiovascular disease; culturally-centred health programmes for Māori and Pasifika; and healthy food and physical activity environments.

[16] The Ministry of Health adopted the new equations into its 2018 guidelines[17] and issued a new data standard,[18] which was incorporated into MedTech, the medical records system widely used by New Zealand GPs.

Another approach to predicting risk of cardiovascular disease was developed by a team led by Greg T. Jones using epigenetics: reversible changes to DNA from environmental factors such as smoking.

[21] The Framework was used to co-design two health programmes, one targeting Māori men at risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity,[22] and the other, Kimi Ora, a healthy lifestyle intervention.

[23]Te Kāika DiRECT, a randomised controlled trial of 40 participants, most Māori or Pasifika, with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, examined the effectiveness of a total three-month meal replacement regime and behavioural support for weight loss; the results suggested it was a non-surgical alternative to a solely dietitian-supported care programme.

[27] The Mana Tū project, initiated by the National Hauora Coalition, which set up a network of community health workers and GPs to support Māori and Pacific people living with type 2 diabetes, was evaluated by Matire Harwood.

[28] The three-year trial studied the effectiveness of training healthcare navigators/kaimanaaki (social workers, nurses, and receptionists) to work with diabetes patients, with 400 participants over 10 GP clinics.

OL@-OR@, a mobile-phone (app and website) delivering lifestyle support programme for Māori and Pasifika, was co-designed and evaluated in a partnership between a team of university researchers led by Clíona Ní Mhurchú, Lisa Te Morenga, and Ridvan Firestone, and community providers Toi Tangata, The Fono, and South Waikato Pacific Islands Community Services.

[44] Related research led by Andrew Reynolds modelled five scenarios for replacing red meat in the New Zealand diet and found significant benefits associated with all of them.

[52][53][54] A study of the effect of the 2022–2023 half-price bus fares in Christchurch found 45% of lower-income residents had been able to afford additional trips and more food and essentials.

[57] The team also examined how to link community lab information to the wider health system, using a dataset of ten years of test results for Heliobacter pylori, a major cause of stomach cancer which has significantly different death rates across ethnicities in New Zealand.

[58] Several studies led by Andrea Teng used big data to answer health questions:[59] one looked at the rates of cardiovascular disease following the Canterbury earthquakes,[60][61] another at the factors affecting the progression of prediabetes to type 2 diabetes in New Zealand (including the novel finding that speaking Te Reo Māori is associated with a reduced risk of progression),[62] and a third estimated the prevalence of cancer in New Zealand.