Evidence Used To Develop Health Strategy

Report Outlines Evidence Used To Develop Health Strategy

The Ministry of Health has published the second of a series of occasional bulletins about the health of New Zealanders. This bulletin, titled Evidence-based Health Objectives for the New Zealand Health Strategy, describes one of the processes used in developing health objectives for the strategy that was launched by Minister of Health Annette King on 14 December 2000.

The bulletin provides details of the size, modifiability and distribution of the burden of premature death and disability resulting from different diseases, injuries and risk factors. These estimates were used when determining the set of priority health objectives to be included in the New Zealand Health Strategy.

The report found that ischaemic heart disease, smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic lung disease and stroke were the highest ranked causes of disability-adjusted life years lost, taking into account both the modifiability of the causes and their distribution among different subgroups of the population.

Evidence-based Health Objectives for the New Zealand Health Strategy is available on the Ministry's website at www.moh.govt.nz

Other reports in the series of occasional bulletins are expected to include reports on the burden of disease and injury experienced by Maori and Pacific peoples, the monitoring of ethnic inequalities in health risks and outcomes, and the burden of diabetes.

Ends

© Scoop Media