Monitoring the health of New Zealand children and young people
During the mid-2000's it became apparent that New Zealand required a formal monitoring framework which considered the breadth of issues important to child and youth health from a health sector perspective as well as the chains of casuality which linked them to the underlying socioeconomic and cultural determinants of health.
The Paediatric Society of New Zealand approached the Ministry of Health, and in 2006 the New Zealand Child and Youth Health Indicator Project was funded. This project resulted in two reports that have since become the basis for the Service's monitoring of child and youth health.
Literature review and framework development
Monitoring the health of New Zealand children and young people: literature review and framework development (PDF 4,287 KB)
This report:
- Reviews New Zealand's previous approaches to monitoring child and youth health
- Highlights the clear need for a more coordinated approach in this area
- Highlights the need for a comprehensive framework which assists those working in the health sector to consider all of the issues which need to be taken into account when planning services and strategies to improve the health of children and young people
- Provides a detailed description of the methodology used to develop the New Zealand Child and Youth Indicator Framework
Indicator handbook
Monitoring the health of New Zealand children and young people: indicator handbook (PDF 3,602 KB)
This report:
- Provides an overview of the monitoring framework developed as a result of the Indicator Project
- Considers how it might be used to achieve health gains for children and young people
- Serves as a catalogue of the indicators contained within the Child and Youth Indicator Framework
The handbook is a technical manual that provides a comprehensive overview of the health of children and young people in New Zealand at the time of publication. For each indicator a formal definition is provided along with information on the quality of the relevant data source(s) and the implications this may have for the indicator's interpretation. The public health relevance of each indicator is discussed, before an analysis of its distribution by age, ethnicity, and NZ Deprivation Index decile is provided.