October 18, 2016

‘Mental disorder’, autism and human rights

Hilary Stace

  There is a well-known saying that a society can be judged by how it looks after its most vulnerable citizens. People with impairments are not inherently vulnerable but are at particular risk of negative interactions with the State for a range of reasons, such as a lack of strong

 

June 13, 2016

Expanding ACC to cover sickness

Grant Duncan

In December 2017, we will mark the 50th anniversary of the Royal Commission report Compensation for Personal Injury in New Zealand, commonly known as the Woodhouse Report after its chair, the late Sir Owen. This pioneering report led to New Zealand’s unique universal 24-hour accident compensation and rehabilitation scheme, the

 

May 30, 2016

Recent Trends in Public Spending

Brian Easton

Despite the public’s desire for more government spending there has been little increase in the aggregate level of government spending relative to GDP over the last 20 years. There was a slight rise immediately after the GFC, because GDP stagnated. Government spending as a percent of GDP is now lower

 

November 12, 2015

The Market For Health-Enhancing Foods

Meike Guenther & Caroline Saunders

There is evidence that health-conscious consumer groups are becoming more and more important. This group has increasing expectations that food products carry health enhancing attributes such as additional minerals, vitamins, peptides, fatty acids, dietary fibres etc. Products carrying these attributes are often called functional or fortified foods, and worldwide the

 

November 5, 2015

Junk Food Marketing

Amanda Wood

The Health Minister is currently deciding how to best address children’s poor health due to diet-related diseases. It is a good time not only to consider the content of the proposed approaches, but also to reflect on the regulatory frameworks that can be used to support those approaches. To aid

 

November 4, 2015

Translation Of Evidence Into Action For The Public Good

Elaine Rush

The relationship between food and health might seem straight forward: with a variety of wholesome foods in sensible quantities, people can grow and function optimally. There is no argument that the food that we eat is intimately associated with health. After all, the molecules that make up our bodies come

 

October 29, 2015

Why I Don’t Ask People To Lose Weight

Robyn Toomath

Last week the government launched their childhood obesity plan and it fills me with dismay. Apart from some wishful thinking in regard to industry self-regulation the initiatives are almost all education-based. There are plans to identify overweight children at an early age in the expectation that education and motivation of

 

October 22, 2015

Unequal Health In New Zealand: Always Like This?

Alistair Woodward & Tony Blakely

There are large inequalities in health in New Zealand. This much is well-known, as is the fact that health care interventions and public health efforts often fail to make things better, and indeed may entrench disadvantage. Was it always like this? In fact, no. We are not suggesting there was

 

June 18, 2015

Bottom Line for Mental Health Services

Dita De Boni

In the United States, about $2 billion each year is shaved off community mental healthcare funding and funnelled straight into the pockets of the private sector, one way or another. That’s the model New Zealand wants to emulate, as revealed by Government with a tiny taster in the shape of

 

May 14, 2015

More Income Is Required To Improve The Health Of Poor Children

Innes Asher

The future is what we choose to develop as well as what we choose to ignore. It is in our decisions and actions, our values and relationships, our language and mind-sets. There is no accidental future for our society. Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith     Many New Zealanders are concerned

 

July 2, 2014

The Cost of Doing Nothing

Elaine Rush

Gabriela Mistral, a Chilean Poet who received the Nobel prize in literature in 1945, wrote: “Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are formed, his mind developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow, his name is today” We cannot wait for more