Health and Independence Report 2002

Director General's Report on the State of Public Health

Date of publication: December 2002

There is probably no-one in New Zealand who does not have some connection with our health and disability services every year. How do we, as taxpayers and users of those services, measure the value gained from that?

This year's Health and Independence Report focuses on the public health and disability system, the services it delivers and what they achieve for New Zealanders.

The report's structure therefore has changed somewhat. This year's report is built around health and disability support services from both a systems viewpoint and in terms of what is achieved for population groups and individuals in various priority areas.

The Health and Independence Report 2002 should be read in conjunction with the New Zealand Health Strategy and the New Zealand Disability Strategy, which set out the overall aims and objectives for the health and disability sectors in New Zealand. Since last year's report was printed, the Ministry of Health has also launched the Pacific Action Plan, the Youth Health Strategy, the Health of Older People Strategy, and He Korowai Oranga (the Maori Health Strategy).

Readers are invited to comment on the content, relevance or direction of this report and on ways in which it could develop in the future. Please address these to:

Health and Independence Report
Sector Policy Directorate
Ministry of Health
PO Box 5137
WELLINGTON

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Document availability

This publication is not available in hard copy. It is only available on this website in PDF format below.

Contents and Foreword	(PDF, 132 kB)
Introduction	(PDF, 37 kB)
Structure of this report	2
Maori health	2
There is some overlap	3
Chapter One: Introducing the System	(PDF, 120 kB)
The health and disability support sector as a system	4
The strategic framework	4
Translating the strategic framework into action	6
Sector structures	8
District Health Boards are the key mechanism to improve population health	9
Maori health	13
References/further information	14
Chapter Two: Health and Disability Support System	(PDF, 594 kB)
Finance	16
Workforce	33
Information	55
The services that are delivered	65
What our health and disability support services acheive	84
References/further information	105
Chapter Three: Health and Disability Support Services for Population Groups	(PDF, 425 kB)
Introduction	107
People with disabilities	107
Older people	130
Child and youth	159
References/further information	177
Chapter Four: Health and Disability Status - Selected Health Priorities	(PDF, 222 kB)
Obesity, nutrition and exercise	179
Meningococcal disease	190
Adolescent Sexual Health	194
References/further information	202
Chapter Five: Priority Health and Disability Support Services	(PDF, 400 kB)
Introduction	204
Primary health care	205
Elective surgical services	218
Mental health services	223
References/further information	236
Appendix 1: The New Zealand health and disability support sector: stocktake of the transition process	(PDF, 120 kB)
Appendix 2: The New Zealand health and disability support sector workforce

This publication has been converted to Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF). Here is a link to information on downloading and viewing PDFs.

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Related information

Public Health

Health and Independence Reports index