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The Children's Social Health Monitor - 2011 Update

In New Zealand, children and young people living in more deprived areas experience significantly worse health outcomes across a range of measures (such as infant mortality, hospital admissions for infectious and respiratory diseases, non-accidental injuries). Each year, these measures are updated and presented through the New Zealand Children's Social Health Monitor. An update for 2011 has recently been released.

Previous updates described worsening figures for hospital admissions for infectious and respiratory diseases since the onset of the recession; this most recent update however indicates that while these admissions are still increasing, the rate of increase appears to be slowing, with possible early signs of improvement for some groups (e.g. Pacific children).

These potential improvements will be driven by many inter-related factors. These may include the healthy homes initiatives (insulating and heating improvements), and better uptake of immunisations, (including the pneumococcal vaccine). These two preventative steps, coupled with an increased access to primary care in many areas may be part of the reason behind such improvements. rnrnThere is still a clear gap between groups of children based upon areas of social deprivation. For example, hospital admissions for injuries arising from the assault, neglect or maltreatment of children: for every admission from an area of low deprivation there are more than 5 from a high deprivation area.

The Children's Social Health Monitor - 2011 Update is available for download at:

http://www.nzchildren.co.nz/