This methodology report details the procedures and protocols followed to ensure the New Zealand Health Survey produces the high-quality and robust data expected of official statistics.
The New Zealand Health Survey is a face-to-face survey with a multi-stage sampling design that involves randomly selecting a sample of small geographic areas, households within the selected areas, and individuals within the selected households. One adult aged 15 years or older and one child aged 14 years or younger (if any in the household) were chosen at random from each selected household.
Survey respondents are selected from the ‘usually resident’ population.
Of those invited to participate in the survey in 2022/23, the weighted response rate was 71% for adults and 67% for children. 6,799 adults and 2,029 primary caregivers (representing their children) agreed to be interviewed. This included 813 disabled adults and 203 disabled children.
Included in the methodology report is information about:
Information specific to the data collection and analysis of the New Zealand Health Survey 2022/23 is included in Section 9 of this report.
This guide describes the content of the New Zealand Health Survey (NZHS) for the year ended 30 June 2023. Data was collected over the year July 2022 to July 2023.
This guide also briefly outlines the history of the NZHS and its development into a continuous survey, describes the process for developing the adult and child questionnaires for 2022/23 and provides an overview of each section of the survey.
The module topics for adults and children in 2022/23 were:
The Annual Data Explorer presents results from the 2022/23 New Zealand Health Survey, with comparisons to earlier surveys where possible. Results are available by gender, age group, ethnic group, neighbourhood deprivation and disability status.
Published data can be downloaded from the Annual Data Explorer as a.csv file.
Data for the 2022/23 New Zealand Health Survey were collected between July 2022 and July 2023, with a sample size of 6,799 adults and 2,029 children. Details about the survey methodology are outlined in the latest Methodology Report and survey content in the Content Guide.
Note that corrections have been made to the 2021/22 New Zealand Health Survey data. Further information is available in Corrections made to 2021/22 New Zealand Health Survey data.
If you have any queries please email healthsurvey@health.govt.nz.
Selected findings from the 2022/23 New Zealand Health Survey are summarised below. See the Annual Data Explorer for results for all 180+ indicators.
Some key results about barriers to visiting a GP have also been presented in the Barriers to visiting a GP for NZ adults 2022/23 poster (PDF, 98 KB).
Please note the following before reading the results:
[1] Children aged 5–14 years are considered disabled if they have serious difficulty with at least one of the following: seeing (even with glasses), hearing (even with hearing aids), walking, self-care, communicating, learning, remembering, concentrating, accepting change, controlling their own behaviour, making friends, anxiety, or depression.
[2] Neighbourhood deprivation refers to the New Zealand Index of Deprivation 2018 (NZDep2018), which measures the level of socioeconomic deprivation for each neighbourhood (Statistical Area 1) according to a combination of the following 2018 Census variables: household income, benefit receipt, household crowding, home ownership, employment status, qualifications, single parent families, living in home with dampness/mould and access to the internet.
[3] Hazardous drinkers are those who obtain an Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) score of 8 or more, representing an established pattern of drinking that carries a high risk of future damage to physical or mental health.
[4] Psychological distress was measured by the 10-item questionnaire Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10). It refers to a person’s experience of symptoms such as nervousness, restlessness, fatigue, or depression in the past four weeks. The K10 is a screening tool, rather than a diagnostic tool, so it’s not recommended to use it to measure the prevalence of mental health conditions in the population.
[5] The SDQ is a screening tool, rather than a diagnostic tool.
[6] The two household food insecurity indicators include questions about whether in the last 12 months the household sometimes or often, ran out of food, and ate less because of lack of money.
The Primary Health Organisation (PHO) enrolment of children in contact with the care and protection system presents an overview of the PHO enrolment status of children in New Zealand in 2021. This is a joint report between Oranga Tamariki and Manatū Hauora.
The report presents data on the overall PHO enrolment status of children grouped into cohorts based on their level of contact with Oranga Tamariki. We found that children in care have similar enrolment rates to children with no care and protection history (94% for children in care and 95% for children with no care and protection contact). It describes those groups further by:
Te Pūrongo mō te Hauora me te Tū Motuhake 2022
The 2022 Health and Independence Report presents an overview of the state of public health in Aotearoa New Zealand for the 2022 calendar year. It does this by presenting data from a range of sources. It complements the Ministry`s Annual Report, which includes detailed information about the strategic direction of the health and disability system and measures of its performance and impact.
The report contains a range of information about the population, health measures, determinants of health, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights the ongoing health inequities and how Māori, Pacific peoples, disabled people and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups generally experience worse health outcomes than other New Zealanders.
The 2022 report is divided into four sections:
The Health and Independence Report 2022 and Pae Ora Health Strategies were produced from a shared evidence base of health and non-health data.
The quantitative measures presented in this report are designed to provide a broad view of the current state of system performance against our four objectives, rather than to reflect progress on any individual action in Whakamaua. Achieving these objectives will make a significant contribution to realising the plan’s high-level outcomes for Māori health and wellbeing.
It will take time for the large system changes needed to occur to meet our four objectives, so the measures in this report do not yet reflect the system changes we are expecting as a result of the actions in Whakamaua. These measures were selected to provide our initial baseline because they are relevant, technically reliable, and because the data is already available in the health and disability system. This means we will be able to report on these measures regularly over the period of the plan, so changes can be measured over time and trends can be shown.
The 2023 publication of the Whakamaua insights are disaggregated by Iwi-Māori Partnership Boards (IMPB) to show the regional distribution of health outcomes instead of Districts as previously published. This is the first-time health statistics have been published by IMPB, which also required the use of the Health Service Utilisation population as the denominator due to the new boundary definitions.
A review of the measure of diabetes complications resulted in this measure changing from primary-diagnosis diabetes related hospitalisations only to primary and secondary-diagnosis diabetes related hospitalisations. The dashboard provides adjusted insights for previous years to enable consistent comparisons over time.
This publication summarises funding to Māori health providers by the Ministry of Health and District Health Boards from 2017/18 to 2021/22. It follows on from our previous reports in 2017, 2021 and 2022.
This report shows information on funding to Māori health providers by the Ministry of Health (the Ministry) and District Health Boards (DHBs) for the period 2017/18 to 2021/22. This report follows on from our reports in 2017, 2021 and 2022 on the same topic and is part of our monitoring of Whakamaua: Māori Health Action Plan 2020-2053.
Highlights include:
Measuring Other types of funding is subject to large fluctuations particularly funding to Māori PHOs. The fluctuations are due to new PHOs being created, closures and amalgamation of PHOs; and general practices moving between PHOs. Because of this, Table 1 may be a more consistent way to measure changes in funding to Māori health providers.
This report provides information about disabled people who access a range of disability support services funded by the Ministry of Health. The information in this report relates to people who accessed disability support services in the financial year from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020 inclusive (2019/20). The report also presents five-year trends back to 2015/16, where applicable.
The disability support service types covered in this report include:
This report also breaks down the data by disability type, including physical, intellectual, autism, neurological and sensory disabilities.
Please note Disability Support Services were delivered by the Ministry of Health until 30 June 2022. From 1 July 2022, these services are delivered by Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People. For queries relating to this report, please contact data@whaikaha.govt.nz.
The 2021 Health and Independence Report provides an overview of the state of public health in Aotearoa New Zealand for the 2021 calendar year. To do this it comprises a range of up-to-date information about the population, the COVID-19 pandemic, and an extensive range of health measures. The data presented comes from a range of sources, including the New Zealand Health Survey and the National Collections. The report complements the Ministry’s Annual Report, which includes detailed information about the strategic direction of the health and disability system and measures of its performance and impact.
The Report highlights that health equity continues to be a challenge. Māori, Pacific peoples, disabled people, and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups generally experience worse health outcomes than other New Zealanders.
The 2021 report is divided into three sections:
Corrections published: 14 December 2023
The results below have been updated to correct a minor error. The error impacted nearly all 2021/22 statistics, but the impact was small in most cases. For more information about the error see Corrections made to 2021/22 New Zealand Health Survey data.
The Annual Data Explorer presents results from the 2021/22 New Zealand Health Survey, with comparisons to earlier surveys where possible. Results are available by gender, age group, ethnic group, neighbourhood deprivation and disability status.
These statistics have been incorporated in the most recent version of the Data Explorer (updated in December 2023):
Published data can be downloaded from the Annual Data Explorer as a.csv file.
Data for the 2021/22 New Zealand Health Survey were collected from July 2021 and July 2022. Details about the survey methodology, including how COVID-19 impacted on data collection, is outlined in the latest Methodology Report.
If you have any queries please email healthsurvey@health.govt.nz.
Selected findings are summarised below. See the Annual Data Explorer for results for all 180+ indicators.
Some key results have also been presented in the Health of New Zealanders 2021/22 poster (PDF, 358 KB)
[1] Hazardous drinkers are those who obtain an Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) score of 8 or more, representing an established pattern of drinking that carries a high risk of future damage to physical or mental health.