This pilot study examined outdoor food advertising and availability around 10 secondary schools in the Wellington and Wairarapa regions. It found that most advertised foods (70%) could be classified as unhealthy (i.e. inconsistent with national nutrition guidelines for adolescents). Food outlets were significantly closer to the schools than other outlets, and there were variations in outlets and type of advertising by socioeconomic status of the neighbourhood. Overall, these findings indicate the need for more research and efforts to control this aspect of the ‘obesogenic environment’.

School-based health services have been established recently in New Zealand to meet the health needs of young people, recognising that school-based services may offer more accessible and youth-orientated care. This study compared the quality of health services at the school clinic to health services outside the school. Overall the quality of health services available for young people was poor, but the school clinic did appear to deliver better quality preventive health services for adolescents.

This paper describes a national study, undertaken in 2003–2005 and funded by the Health Research Council, which has led to the development of a toolkit on community participation for primary health organisations (PHOs). The study was qualitative in nature, and included interviews with key people in the primary care sector, a consultation process on the draft toolkit, and finally a pilot process in four PHOs. The Ministry of Health’s minimum requirement that PHOs involve iwi, consumers, and communities in their governing processes has not proved an easy task for many PHOs. One of the key findings in this paper is that many PHOs are seeking resources, such as the community participation toolkit, to aid them in their development of population-based primary health care.

Prevalence of Type 1 diabetes in New Zealanders aged 0–24 years
D Wu, D Kendall, H Lunt, J Willis, B Darlow, C Frampton

The number of people with diabetes is on the increase. Type 2 diabetes (previously know as maturity-onset diabetes) is increasing in New Zealand, partly because of changes in lifestyle. For reasons that are not fully understood, and which probably do not relate to lifestyle, Type 1 diabetes (insulin-dependent diabetes) is also on the increase. There are now approximately 2,500 children and young people with this condition in New Zealand and most larger schools will have at least one pupil with Type 1 diabetes.

This paper aims to describe and understand teenagers’ frequency of attendance for GP care of moderate to severe asthma in the Auckland region. The paper reports responses to a self-complete questionnaire from 114 13–14 year olds with moderate to severe asthma at 10 schools. The study found that more frequent attendance by Maori and Pacific teenagers (than New Zealand Europeans) challenges the persistence of barriers to them accessing GPs for acute care of moderate to severe asthma.

Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (ESBLPE) are bacteria that are resistant to many classes of antibiotics. This limits effective treatment options. Currently the number of infections caused by ESBLPE at Middlemore Hospital and in the Auckland community is low. It is clear however that infections caused by ESBLPE are steadily increasing. While the transmission of ESBLPE has in the past occurred almost entirely in hospitals, there is now evidence that this is occurring in the Auckland community. Ongoing careful infection control practices within hospitals and sensible antibiotic prescribing by doctors will be necessary to reduce the rate of increase of infections caused by ESBLPE.