Work is under way on a plan to improve the safety of female MPs as new research shows harassment of elected officials - especially women - is on the rise.

An University of Otago report that looked at the issue has found 98 per cent of respondents reported some form of harassment; up from 87 per cent in 2014.

However, only 48 per cent say they reported it to police, while 56 per cent sought assistance from Parliamentary security.

The study received anonymised responses from 54 MPs - including 11 ministers or associate ministers.

Women are considerably more likely to face abuse on most counts than male politicians, with abuse increasing across 11 of the 12 different mediums - with social media overtaking emails, faxes and letters as the most prominent - compared to the previous study.

The only kind of abuse that did not increase in that time - alarming behaviour at an electorate office - was experienced at the same rate.

Labour MP Cushla Tangaere-Manuel co-chairs the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP) group, which is working on a plan to help improve security for women Parliamentarians.

She tells RNZ's Checkpoint she believes one of the report's most disturbing findings is that the families of elected officials have been threatened.

"That's not ok."

Public awareness of the issue is important and a line needs to be drawn that abuse os not acceptable towards anyone, she says.

"If I walk into a shop and don't like the retailer, for example, I'm not going to hurl abuse at them and threaten to follow them home and harm their families."

Tangaere-Manuel says she's not working at Parliament when the survey was undertaken and has not personally experienced any abuse "as yet", but it's important the survey's findings are taken note of.

The survey was undertaken in October and November 2022 and published on in the internationally recognised Frontiers in Psychiatry scientific journal on Tuesday.

Tangaere-Manuel suspects the reports of harassment by elected officials surveyed has been "heightened" by the Covid-19 response - "we saw people's responses to that" - and says it's possible women are seen as "more vulnerable and therefore open to attack".

The CWP has not yet met to discuss how security could be improved for female Parliamentarians, but Tangaere-Manuel says the group will work in a bipartisan way to come up with some solutions.

"We're here to serve the public and I don't mind people disagreeing with policies but I think we need to draw the line between critique and abuse."

-RNZ.