Welcome to the latest issue of the Environmental Health Intelligence Newsletter!
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Environmental Health Intelligence Newsletter 24
December 2021
If we thought 2020 was strange, I think in many ways 2021 has been even stranger – what with various versions of lockdown in different parts of the country, and now we have a new traffic light system to get used to. Perhaps the next iteration will be the stop/go road signs. Despite enduring this odd environment, I am delighted to report the EHINZ team continued to work diligently and productively on our task of monitoring the environmental health of New Zealand. Our delivery of factsheets and other key deliverables remained on schedule. There have been a number of other highlights for the team in the last six months, which are mentioned further in this issue.
EHINZ is leading the establishment of the Public Health Observatory New Zealand (PHONZ). PHONZ is a forum for people interested in public health intelligence to collaborate, exchange ideas, and meet other people locally, nationally and internationally with similar interests and passions. It will address the growing need in the health system to providing “intelligence” for decision making and policy development and also workforce development. There have been a number of notable COVID-19 achievements by previous and current members of the team. Two former members have been at the forefront of COVID-19 response - Maria Poynter, now Clinical Director at Auckland Regional Public Health Service, and Sarah Jefferies, now at ESR. Sarah led the team that has just been awarded the HRC’s Liley Medal for a study published in The Lancet Public Health in 2020 on NZ’s pandemic response. In addition, in the first part of this year, Deborah Read was Chief Advisor (Epidemiology) in the Ministry’s COVID-19 Health System Response Directorate. Kylie led a team to produce some social vulnerability indicators for the COVID-19 response.
On behalf of the EHINZ team, I want to wish you and your whānau all the very best for a very happy Christmas and New Year. We are looking forward to continuing our collaboration and sharing our new initiatives with you in 2022.
Congratulations to Professor Barry Borman and Associate Professor Deborah Read and our former member Dr Sarah Jefferies
Congratulations to Deborah Read, who has been appointed as a Medical Adviser, Medical Council New Zealand from October.
Congratulations to Barry Borman, who has been elected again to the Academic Board for the College of Health.
Our former member Dr Sarah Jefferies has been awarded the Health Research Council's prestigious Liley Medal
Congratulations to our former member Dr Sarah Jefferies, who has just been awarded the Liley Medal about analysing the impact of New Zealand's response to the first wave of COVID-19 in New Zealand.
We will continue to host the virtual stakeholder meeting on a regular basis
In November, we trialled a ‘virtual stakeholder meeting’: a video conference designed to give EHINZ’s stakeholders and other parties interested in our work an opportunity to engage with the team and learn about our recent successes and plans for 2022 and beyond – without needing to travel to Wellington to meet in person.
The meeting was well-received and attended by representatives from all around the country, so we are going to make virtual meetings a regular feature, with the next to be held in June 2022.
Public Health Observatory NZ – a forum for people interested in public health intelligence
The Public Health Observatory New Zealand (PHONZ) has been established for people, locally, nationally, and internationally interested in public health intelligence to collaborate, exchange ideas, and meet. It will be a repository for news, data, analytical tools, information, and intelligence.
We will be holding virtual meetings and presentations, developing workforce training courses, and creating special interest groups within PHONZ, such as GIS, Māori, and Pacific.
We are transforming our usual PDF web-based factsheets into interactive online factsheets
Mosquito-borne disease
In 2019, five different mosquito-borne diseases totaling 272 notifications were recorded in New Zealand primarily entering from the regions.
Non-melanoma skin cancer deaths
Non-melanoma skin cancer mortality rates have increased in men from 2012 (1.9 per 100,00) to 2018 (3.1 per 100,000) while female rates have remained stable at around 1.0 per 100,000.
Factsheets updates
Notifications of waterborne diseases with untreated drinking water as a risk factor
Completion rates for risk factor information submitted by different PHUs continue to be highly variable and are often lower than 50%, making reliable calculations of the rate of waterborne diseases with a connection to untreated drinking water difficult.
Oral health of children
Between 2000 and 2018, the oral health of older children (those in school-year eight) steadily improved. However, the oral health of younger children (aged five) appears to have been largely unchanged since around 2011. We are completing a follow-up investigation into why this may be.
Access to safe drinking water
In the 2019/20 reporting period, over four million New Zealanders (81.4% of the population) received water from a registered drinking water supply, of whom 3.2 million received water that met all bacteriological, protozoal and chemical safety requirements.
Access to fluoridated drinking water
Of the roughly four million New Zealanders on registered drinking-water supplies, 61.4% (about 2.5 million people) had access to fluoridated drinking-water in the 2019/20 reporting period.
Number and density of livestock
While overall livestock numbers continue to decline, sheep still outnumber all other livestock types combined by almost three to one.
Energy use by fuel type & sector
Between 1990 and 2019, oil was the dominant type of fuel used in New Zealand and the amount of energy consumed in the form of oil per capita increased by 17%, from 48.1 PJ per million people to 56.3 PJ per million people.
Extreme temperature
In 2019, New Zealand experienced, on average 47 hot days (days with temperatures above 25 degrees Celsius). The territorial authorities with the highest number of hot days were in the Bay of Plenty (102) and Waikato (95) regions.
Extreme rainfall & drought
In 2019, New Zealand had, on average, 66 days with a soil moisture deficit and 18 days with extreme rainfall. The climate station representing Tauranga District had the most dry days (136), whereas the stations representing Dunedin, Mackenzie, Southland and Westland District had the most extreme rainfall days (26 each).
Second-hand smoke exposure in the home
Exposure to second-hand smoke for children has decreased considerably from 9.6% in 2006/07 to 3.2% in 2015/16. Second-hand smoke exposure among non-smoking adults has more than halved between 2006/07 (7.7%) and 2015/16 (3.2%).
Sudden unexpected death in infancy
Over 500 babies died from SUDI between 2008 and 2017, including 48 babies in 2017.
Melanoma cancer registrations
In 2019, the percentage of melanomas with thickness larger than 2mm was greater for Māori than non-Māori, indicating a lower chance of survival, despite the lower registration rates in Māori
Unintentional hazardous substances exposures in children (0–14 years)
While most of the exposures were safe to manage without further medical assessment, every situation should be checked with the National Poisons Centre.
Occupational lead absorption notifications
Pacific workers had the highest occupational lead absorption notification rate in 2014–20.
Non-occupational/unknown source of lead absorption notifications
The non-occupational/unknown source of lead absorption notification rate has decreased from 2.1 per 100,000 (94 notifications) in 2014 to 1.2 per 100,000 (62 notifications) in 2020.
Unintentional hazardous substances-related hospitalisations
Children under five years have the highest hospitalisation rates for ‘Other and unspecified chemicals and noxious substances’, ‘Organic solvents and halogenated hydrocarbons and their vapours’ and ‘Pesticides’.
Hazardous substances-related deaths reported to the coroner in New Zealand
The percentage of butane and other hydrocarbons deaths in ages 15–24 has decreased by 73% from 2008–13 to 2014–19.
Other highlights
New social vulnerability indicators for natural hazards
We will soon be releasing some new data and information for the social vulnerability indicators for natural hazards. This includes new indicator data for older adults living alone, single parent households, single person households, and households with children, as well as metadata for the indicators. All new information will be published on our social vulnerability indicators webpage.
We have also made the social vulnerability indicators available as a REST service for ArcGIS Online. This allows users to use our indicator data in their own online mapping, and is particularly useful for emergency management.
Alcohol-related harm indicators
Updated hospitalisations wholly attributable to alcohol with 2019 data are now available by DHB and TA. The update can be found on Healthspace as downloadable spreadsheets only, on the Resources page under the heading Alcohol-related harm.
We are also in the process of updating our alcohol outlet density information. We are at the point where we can do updates region by region, and provide earlier results in spreadsheet form. If you would like to discuss prioritising your region and receiving the alcohol outlet density results as a spreadsheet and a few maps, please contact us.
News from the team
Farewell to Shanika & Shunnie
Shanika worked in the EHINZ team for over 2 years. She has done outstanding work not only for the teaching programme, but also in providing excellent assistance and support in other areas of our work.
Shunnie worked in the EHINZ team for nearly 2 years. She expertly led the hazardous substances domain and made an outstanding contribution to the programme. She showcased the hazardous substances surveillance system at the GP conference in Rotorua in June this year.
We wish Shanika and Shunnie all the best for their next adventure.
Welcome Liam!
Liam joined the EHINZ team in August 2021. He has a MSc from Massey University and a BBiomedSc from the University of New England, Australia. He leads the border health domain and is taking over the hazardous substance domain.
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please feel free to email us.
