Insights into health system costs of living and dying in New Zealand – New study

Friday, May 2nd, 2014 | TONY BLAKELY | No Comments

Professor Tony Blakely and Associate Professor Nick Wilson (and on behalf of co-authors June Atkinson, Giorgi Kvizhinadze, Nhung Nghiem, and Heather McLeod)

A study in the NZ Medical Journal shows how public spending on health varies markedly by age and proximity to death (Blakely et al 2014, health system costs). It raises interesting questions about the best use of taxpayer funds for preventing and treating ill health. In this blog we detail the main findings of this study and reflect some of the possible implications. Continue reading

Physical activity or nutrition interventions: which can improve population health the most and save the most health dollars?

Tuesday, November 19th, 2013 | Kate Sloane | 1 Comment

Professor Tony Blakely and Associate Professor Nick Wilson

We gave a presentation to Members of Parliament last week on taxes and subsidies on food, the pros and cons (slides here). In this blogpost we go into some extra detail on how such nutritional interventions compare to physical activity ones – in terms of health gain and potential for cost savings to the health system. Continue reading

Food taxes and subsidies will probably protect health & reduce inequalities – but the devil is in the detail

Wednesday, October 9th, 2013 | TONY BLAKELY | 2 Comments

Professors Tony Blakely, Cliona Ni Mhurchu and Nick Wilson

Professor Cliona Ni Mhurchu

Research teams we lead have published two papers in the last few weeks on food taxes and subsidies – both of which depend on what are called price elasticities.  Timely, in light of the launch last week of Appetite for Destruction that is focusing public attention on our food environment, including taxes and subsidies on food. Continue reading

Happiness surveys, & can health sector interventions improve well-being?

Wednesday, September 18th, 2013 | Nick Wilson | 2 Comments

Assoc Prof Nick Wilson & Prof Tony Blakely

According to the just released “World Happiness Report 2013”, New Zealanders are among the happiest people in the world, ranking 13th out of 156 nations examined. Actually only seven countries appear to have significantly higher (happier) rankings than New Zealand (where the confidence intervals for the ranking scores clearly don’t overlap). These include the four Scandinavian countries, two European countries (Netherlands and Switzerland) and Canada. The source of the New Zealand data is the two-yearly New Zealand General Social Survey (NZGSS), run by Statistics New Zealand. Continue reading

Care coordination for cancer cost-effective

Monday, September 2nd, 2013 | TONY BLAKELY | 2 Comments

Professor Tony Blakely

Dedicated cancer care coordinators – a clinical nurse specialist charged with navigating patients through their care – appears to be cost effective, at least for stage III colon cancer.

The Government’s 2012 Budget included $33 million for “better and faster” services for cancer patients, of which $16 million dollars was for care coordination nurses.  This all seems sensible, in that the immediate and net cost of cancer care coordinators may be negligible – putting in place coordinators frees up other staff to do other things as we show in a publication last week in the NZ Medical Journal. Continue reading