health loss – Public Health Expert, University of Otago, New Zealand

The Draft NZ Health Strategy: Will it enable New Zealanders to “live well, stay well and get well”?

Tuesday, December 1st, 2015 | Kate Sloane | 2 Comments

Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Richard Edwards, Prof Tony Blakely

The new draft NZ Health Strategy is strong on strengthening the health care system and has some strong population health aspects, at least rhetorically. It includes phrases like a system moving “from treatment to prevention”. But how does it fare when considering the science around burden of disease and interventions to address the 10 top risk factors for health loss in NZ? Unfortunately not well at all. There are no population health goals and minimal evidence of concrete action to address the major preventable causes of poor health and premature death. In summary, there seems plenty of scope for upgrading the draft Strategy if it is going to enable New Zealanders to “live well, stay well and get well”.

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Should NZ spend relatively more health resources on improving men’s health?

Thursday, March 13th, 2014 | Nick Wilson | 2 Comments

Associate Professor Nick Wilson

There is no doubt that NZ needs to keep addressing ethnic inequalities in health as an important priority. Nevertheless, gender inequalities may also be worth some consideration given that NZ men have lower life expectancy than women by four years. This blog summarises key data and considers the major risk factors determining poorer male health. It then discusses if there is a plausible case for shifting more of the available health resources towards improving male health.

Figure: Years of life lived in good and poor health (based on data in: Ministry of Health 2013)

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The Draft NZ Health Strategy: Will it enable New Zealanders to “live well, stay well and get well”?

Should NZ spend relatively more health resources on improving men’s health?

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