668 Results

  • How to Systematically Reduce the Border Failure Risk for COVID-19 in Aotearoa/NZ

    … and has reduced overall weekly deaths for NZ in 2020. 4 5 The economic damage from the response to COVID-19 in the … necessary to ensure that the risks of future outbreaks are as low as possible. Indeed, there have been a number of recent …
    Briefing

  • Why don’t we live as long and healthily as we could: social values and decision making

    … We undertake to make this blog informative, relevant, and as evidence-based as possible. If I was Minister of Health (and everything … on the criteria it uses for deciding which drugs we as taxpayers subsidise.  PHARMAC is probably the world’s most …
    Briefing

  • Comparing the Covid-19 response and major outcomes in island nations

    … used a more proactive strategic response to Covid-19 (such as in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand who proactively used … estimated cases and over seven million confirmed deaths ( as of June 2025 ). When we consider estimates of excess … and (C) median stringency*   * Adapted from Figure 5 of Summers et al (2025), further details available  online …
    Briefing

  • Ten things we can learn from new smoking and vaping data about progress to Smokefree Aotearoa 2025

    … key points from the 2018-19 NZ Health Survey (NZHS) data as available on the 2018-19 annual data explorer website ( … trends Overall smoking prevalence in 2018/19 was 12.5% for daily smoking (490,000 smokers) and 14.2% for current … in smoking persist and Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 is (as for Māori) way off  track for Pacific peoples and is …
    Briefing

  • Lessons from Canada for NZ: Carbon, Cycling, Tobacco, Nutrition and Cannabis

    … This year Canada is proposing to expand such a scheme, as used in British Colombia (BC), to other provinces. In the … scheme, 90% of the revenues will be returned to citizens as per-capita dividends [1]. The successful BC scheme has … For example, the city of Victoria in BC has achieved 11.5% of journeys to work by cycle [7]. In contrast, the highest …
    Briefing

  • ACC turns 50: A more modern approach to injury prevention needed

    … effective if it also addressed structural causes, such as unsafe housing or inadequate product regulations. Stronger … three decades, the causes of injury have been recognised as arising from an environment where many factors interact. … regularly fail when relied on to support body weight . 5 Others are not fit for purpose, such as solar-powered …
    Briefing

  • Only eight more years to go to 2025: Time for the NZ Government to step up its tobacco endgame

    … by 2025 (1). There has been some recent progress, such as an extension of the yearly tobacco tax increases until … until 2020, daily smoking rates among Māori may still be as high as 17% by 2025 (2, 3). It is likely that achieving … is exploring the tobacco-free generation strategy (5) and Hungary substantially reduced outlet points of tobacco …
    Briefing

  • Potential health co-benefits from eradicating rats, stoats and possums in NZ towns and cities

    … The eradication of some introduced pests such as rats, stoats and possums in New Zealand, seems … will be to native birds and enhanced biodiversity, as well as for agriculture (if bovine tuberculosis is … conducted literature searches, and considered a key text (5). Our estimates of the likely types of health benefits are …
    Briefing

  • Where do the parties stand? Protecting water sources and drinking water quality

    … supplies for some communities. Additionally, in 2016, as a result of contaminated drinking water, the people of … developing long-term health conditions, and four dying. 5 The outbreak occurred when a poorly-maintained municipal … parties asked: “Will your party implement regulations such as ‘sinking lid’ caps on the use of nitrogen fertiliser and …
    Briefing

  • The Pros and Cons of a Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Goal: The Case is Overwhelmingly Pro for NZ

    … considered.   Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 has been described as “a world-leading, bold ‘endgame’ goal” [1]. The goal arose … and in 2011, the Government of the day adopted it as a national target to achieve minimal smoking prevalence … the current NZ population over their remaining lifetimes [5], with additional substantial gains for future populations. …
    Briefing

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Public Health Expert Briefing (ISSN 2816-1203)