Health equity in the New Zealand health care system: A national survey

Abstract

Introduction. In all countries people experience different social circumstances that result in avoidable differences in health. In New Zealand, Mori, Pacific peoples, and those with lower socioeconomic status experience higher levels of chronic illness, which is the leading cause of mortality, morbidity and inequitable health outcomes. Whilst the health system can enable a fairer distribution of good health, limited national data is available to measure health equity. Therefore, we sought to find out whether health services in New Zealand were equitable by measuring the level of development of components of chronic care management systems across district health boards. Variation in provision..