Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington
Note: This is not a Ministry of Health publication but is provided here in the interests of making the information easier to find.
Summary
NZDep2013 is an updated version of the NZDep2006 index of socioeconomic deprivation. NZDep2013 combines census data relating to income, home ownership, employment, qualifications, family structure, housing, access to transport and communications. NZDep2013 provides a deprivation score for each meshblock in New Zealand. Meshblocks are the smallest geographical area defined by Statistics New Zealand, with a population of around 60–110 people.
NZDep2013 groups deprivation scores into deciles, where 1 represents the areas with the least deprived scores and 10 the areas with the most deprived scores. A value of 10 therefore indicates that a meshblock is in the most deprived 10% of areas in New Zealand.
It is important to note that NZDep2013 estimates the relative socioeconomic deprivation of an area, and does not directly relate to individuals. NZDep2013 can not be used to look at changes in absolute deprivation over time as 10% of areas will always be the most deprived, relative to other areas in New Zealand. The indicators used to generate the index may also change over time, depending on their relation to deprivation.
The NZDep2013 Index of Deprivation is available on the Otago University website.