MDHB News

Health Needs

MidCentral District Health Board (MidCentral DHB) regularly assesses the health needs of its community and the results are published in the Health Needs Assessment document. The latest (2008) Health Needs Assessment (2.8MB) (HNA) was issued in 2009 and and will be used to inform comprehensive planning. The previous health needs assessment was the 2005 document (7.7MB).

Medical officer looking at file.

Focus of MidCentral DHB's Health Needs Assessment

The focus of MidCentral DHB’s Health Needs Assessment (2.8MB) is to gather and examine health data and look for patterns that indicate health status or health needs of the community.

For example the HNA looks at:

Mortality rates
Morbidity
Demographics
Socio-economic information

The HNA also looks at different population groupings including ethnicity, territorial authority, age groups and people living in socio-economically disadvantaged areas.

The 300 page document (2.8MB) details the health status of MidCentral DHB’s residents, and will be used as a planning tool for providing new services or developing existing services to best meet health needs.

Although the 2008 HNA (2.8MB) would be expected to replace the 2005 HNA, many of the patterns shown in the 2005 document still apply. Therefore, the 2005 HNA (7.7MB) is still useful.

The 2008 HNA adopts a greater “top down” approach, compared to the detailed approach of the 2005 document. As a result, the 2008 HNA would be easier to read for people wanting to know the broad health status patterns.

Summary of MidCentral DHB’s HNA

In general, health status has improved between the 2005 and 2008 health needs assessments. New Zealand’s general health status has also been improving.

MidCentral DHB's residents who experience health status disadvantage are:

Maori
Pacfiic peoples
Horowhenua residents
People experiencing socio-economic disadvantage

Ministry of Social Development research has helped identify which households are most likely to experience socio-economic hardship. This information can help identify which households are most likely to benefit from additional health-related assistance.

MidCentral DHB has a slightly higher population living in areas with more deprived NZDep scores compared to New Zealand. MidCentral DHB’s highest populations are in decile 8 and 9 areas, and have more people in decile 10 than decile 1.

The picture for Maori in MidCentral DHB is worse. By far the largest proportion of Maori live in more deprived areas, and there is only a very small population of Maori in the least deprived areas.

For individual territorial authorities, Horowhenua and Kapiti Coast districts have the highest proportions of people living in NZDep ranked deprived areas.

Mortality

Circulatory system disorders, cancers, respiratory system disorders, external causes (unintentional and intentional injuries), and endocrine diseases are the top five causes of mortality for the MidCentral DHB district. Endocrine diseases are diseases of the hormone producing organs, the most important of which is diabetes.

MidCentral DHB’s overall mortality rate from 1999 to 2001 was 10% higher than New Zealand’s. This gap reduced to 6% when 2002 to 2004 mortality data was analysed.

MidCentral DHB’s circulatory disease mortality gap compared to New Zealand also showed improvement. MidCentral DHB’s circulatory disease mortality rate was 15% higher than New Zealand’s in the 1999 to 2001 period. This gap narrowed to 10% for the following three year period (2002 to 2004). Circulatory disease is the most common cause of death for New Zealanders and MidCentral DHB residents, responsible for about 40% of all deaths.

MidCentral DHB Maori and New Zealand Maori experienced higher than expected numbers of deaths from: all causes, circulatory disease (over double the expected number), respiratory disease, and external causes (although MidCentral DHB Maori figures do not reach statistical significance for external causes).