Burden of Disease and Injury in New Zealand

The Burden of Disease and Injury in New Zealand
Public Health Intelligence: Occasional Bulletin No. 1

Date of publication: January 2001

To achieve its health and independence objectives, the Government requires reliable and valid information on population health outcomes, how equitably these outcomes are distributed across subgroups of the population, and the causes of these outcomes. This information is required to monitor current trends, forecast future needs for Government intervention, and evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of Government policies and programmes in meeting its objectives in this area of social policy.

The process employed by the Government to meet this information need has been a State of the Public Health reporting cycle, comprising annual reports on progress towards specific health targets and five yearly reports on population health status and health determinants. This reporting cycle is supported by a programme of national health, nutrition, disability and risk factor surveys (most recently carried out in 1996–97), dedicated disease and injury surveillance systems and registers, and national health statistical collections (including cause of death and hospital discharge statistics).

In 1999 the second five yearly report on population health status, Our Health, Our Future: The Health of New Zealanders 1999 was published. It includes a description of population health status in terms of the two dimensions of health: quantity of life (mortality) and quality of life (morbidity). The report then integrates these two dimensions using both ‘health expectancy’ and ‘health gap’ summary measures of population health. Finally, the scope for health gain is analysed.

The Burden of Disease and Injury in New Zealand provides more detail about the health gap measures than could be included in Our Health, Our Future. It is intended to serve as a resource for a wide range of users, including health planners and policy analysts, health service funders and providers, community groups and others with an interest in summary measures of population health in general and health gap measures in particular.

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