The principal scientific journal for the profession in New Zealand

Aubrey L Stones, Patries M Herst

Review of the Accident Compensation Corporation’s radiation therapy injury claims, 1 July 2009–30 June 2019

This study explored the incidence, type and costs of radiation therapy injury claims from the last decade, with the aim of increasing health professionals’ understanding of the ACC treatment injury claim process and legislated criteria to better assist injured individuals.

Hayneil Solanki, Lucy Mills, Ashok Raj

Shear wave elastography to predict oesophageal varices, morbidity and mortality in chronic liver disease

Chronic liver disease (CLD) is a growing problem affecting approximately fifty million people worldwide.

Ben Wamamili, Pat Coope, Randolph C Grace

Cigarette smoking and e-cigarette use among university students in New Zealand before and after nicotine-containing e-cigarettes became widely available: results from repeat cross-sectional surveys

Cigarette smoking is a leading cause of preventable illness and death in New Zealand and globally and a major contributor to inequalities in health and social wellbeing between Māori and non-Māori New Zealanders.

Taria Tane, Vanessa Selak, Kimiora Hawkins, Vanita Lata, Jonathan Murray, DeAnn Nicholls, Amelia Peihopa, Ngaraiti Rice, Matire Harwood

Māori and Pacific peoples’ experiences of a Māori-led diabetes programme

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) disproportionately affects Māori and Pacific peoples in Aotearoa.

Georgina S McPherson, Priya Parmar, Deborah Payne, Tagaloatele Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop

Which demographic factors influence Pacific women’s attendance at colposcopy clinics in New Zealand?

Since New Zealand introduced organised cervical screening in the 1990s,both the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer has reduced significantly.

Peter Crampton, Jo Baxter, Zoë Bristowe

Selection of Māori students into medicine: re-imagining merit. Exploring some of the sociological reasons that might explain the exclusion of Māori from the medical workforce

Māori have been severely under-represented in New Zealand’s medical workforce for the entirety of the country’s colonial history.

Leanne Te Karu, Matire Harwood, Bruce Arroll, Linda Bryant, Tim Kenealy

The inequity of access to health: a case study of patients with gout in one general practice

Achieving health equity in Aotearoa New Zealand is a stated aim of the Government and those responsible for managing and developing its health and disability system.

Lisa M Hamm, Isabel A Johnson, Robert J Jacobs, Janis E Paterson, El-Shadan Tautolo, Leon Iusitini, Nick Garrett, Suzanne C Purdy

Visual impairment and its correction among Pacific youth in Aotearoa: findings from the Pacific Islands Families Study

Pacific people living in Aotearoa New Zealand experience disproportionately poor health outcomes, and this extends to eye problems.

Sakura Oyama, El-Shadan Tautolo, Collin Tukuitonga, Elaine C Rush

Pacific Islands Families Study: adverse impact of food insecurity on child body composition

The global recession caused by COVID-19 has exacerbated unemployment, inequities and poverty in Aotearoa.

Hemakumar Devan, Bernadette Jones, Cheryl Davies, Meredith Perry, Leigh Hale, Rebecca Grainger, Tristram Ingham

Are we just dishing out pills constantly to mask their pain? Kaiāwhina Māori health workers’ perspectives on pain management for Māori | OPEN ACCESS

Chronic non-cancer pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide and disproportionately affects Māori and their whānau, as Māori adults are 1.4 times more likely than non-Māori adults to self-report chronic pain.

Lyndon Keene, Sarah Dalton

Closing the gaps: health equity by 2040

Health inequities have existed in New Zealand since records began. They have been described as immoral because for many years governments have known what is needed to address them.

COVID-19: what comes after elimination? | OPEN ACCESS

Des Gorman, Murray Horn

Although the delta variant of Covid emerged last year and was detected in our managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities five months ago, we were poorly prepared for and have struggled to control this current outbreak.

The human and health costs of failure to implement pro-Tiriti and pro-equity health policies: let’s act as if we know this

Peter Crampton

After a twenty-year period of relative stability in the health system, we are entering a period of very considerable change. These changes are driven, in part, by a clearly stated desire on the part of government for fairer health outcomes for Māori.

Caroline Shaw, Annette Bolton, Alex Macmillan, Rhys Jones

Iti noa ana he pito mata / from the withered tree a flower blooms: healthy equitable climate policy in Aotearoa New Zealand

It’s hard to say anything about climate breakdown in 2021 that nature isn’t already saying through unprecedented heat waves, bush fires and flooding.

Vol 134 No 1541: 3 September 2021

Are the government’s intended health indicators the accountability measures the New Zealand health system urgently needs?

Murray Horn, Graham Scott, Des Gorman

We have embarked on another expensive and disruptive reform of our health system. The government’s 12 Heath System Indicators are intended to “measure and report how well our health and disability system is doing for New Zealanders.”

Cameron C Grant, Q Sue Huang, Adrian Trenholme, Susan Taylor, Tim Wood

What can we learn from our 2021 respiratory syncytial virus experience?

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), named for it causing multinucleated cells (syncytia) to form in cell culture, is the leading cause of acute lower respiratory infections (ALRIs) during early childhood.

Zoe J Clifford, Harsh P Singh

Restructuring management of thoracic trauma: a neglected entity

Thoracic trauma universally is a major cause of morbidity and mortality across all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, and in this issue of the New Zealand Medical Journal, McGuinness et al demonstrate that adverse events in patients with rib fractures are starting at a younger age than much of the current literature suggests.

Mareta Hunt, Sarah Herbert, Melissa Wilson, Shanthi Ameratunga

Kawa haumaru: a mātauranga Māori approach to child safety in Aotearoa New Zealand

Aotearoa New Zealand performs poorly with respect to child injury prevention in comparison to other high-income countries.

John Horrocks, Nick Wilson

Diesel matters: accelerating the light diesel vehicle endgame in Aotearoa New Zealand

The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study estimated in 2020 that in the previous year there were 6.7 million premature deaths globally from air pollution (ambient particulate matter and ambient ozone pollution).

Tim Chambers, Simon Hales, Caroline Shaw, Michael Baker, Jude Ball, Christine Cleghorn, Nick Wilson

New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission report: the critical need to address the missing health co-benefits of reducing emissions

The Climate Change Commission’s (the Commission’s) draft report (the Report) and recommendations provide a useful pathway towards achieving the New Zealand Government’s commitment of net zero emissions by 2050.

Robert Weinkove, Philip George, Myra Ruka, Tia Huia Haira, Giulia Giunti

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cells in New Zealand: challenges and opportunities

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells are an emerging modality of cancer therapy. CAR T-cells are patient lymphocytes that have been engineered to express a synthetic receptor, which enables them to target tumour cells.

Owen Sinclair, Cameron Grant

New Zealand’s immunisation policy fails again and entrenches ethnic disparities

New Zealand has a long history of failing to immunise and protect its children. The last national immunisation survey in 2005 showed overall immunisations rates of 77% at age two years.

Vol 134 No 1541: 3 September 2021

Barriers and solutions to trainee-led research collaboratives in New Zealand

STRATA Collaborative

The New Zealand Government’s Health Research Strategy 2017–2027 aims to create a “vibrant research environment in the health sector” guided by the principles of research excellence, transparency, partnership with Māori and collaboration.

Alex Psirides, David G Tripp, Tammy J Pegg

Rethinking resuscitation: moving the goals

Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation of the victims of drowning was first performed in Paris in the 1700s. It was another 250 years until a group led by surgeon James Jude first described closed chest cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), ostensibly as a treatment for the effects of excessive anaesthetic induction agents.

Andrea Teng, Viliami Puloka, Louise Signal, Nick Wilson

Pacific countries lead the way on sugary drinks taxes: lessons for New Zealand | OPEN ACCESS

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of obesity in the OECD, and the health burden of death and disability from obesity and being overweight has increased by 26% in a decade to become the second largest single cause of health loss after tobacco.

Beth Messenger, Amy Beliveau, Mike Clark, Caroline Fyfe, Alison Green

How has long-acting reversible contraceptive provision at Family Planning clinics in Aotearoa New Zealand changed since PHARMAC funded intra-uterine systems for contraception?

Here we report de-identified administrative data about the type of long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) start provided to Family Planning clients for three months (November–January) across four time-periods from November 2017 to January 2021.

Phil Bagshaw, Gil Barbezat, Brian Cox, Paula Goodman, Dave McKay, Murray Pfeifer, Melissa Vining

Ministry stops measuring the effect of screening on access to diagnostic colonoscopy

In New Zealand, the Southern region has historically had among the highest incidence and mortality rates for colorectal cancer, and considering the region has also had among the highest rates of late and advanced presentations of colorectal cancer to A&E, it seems paradoxical that the Southern region has among the lowest rates of colonoscopy.

Navigating the maze of DHB locality authorisation

Patrick Bartosch

As a remote, first-year PhD student in health sciences at the University of Otago, I have become used to managing a variety of challenges that the global pandemic has brought along with it: taking calls in the middle of the night (I live in the Netherlands, waiting for New Zealand to open its borders), getting together with my supervisors via Zoom only (we have yet to meet in person) and navigating the bureaucratic landscape of gaining ethics approval and applying for scholarship and funding at the university while being outside of the country.

Jude Ball, Jane Zhang, David Hammond, Joseph Boden, James Stanley, Richard Edwards

The rise of cannabis vaping: implications for survey design

Until about 2010, smoking of cannabis (in a joint, pipe or bong) was by far the dominant mode of use, globally and in New Zealand.

Victoria Murphy, Emily Gill

What we can’t see: the intimate lived experience of rural New Zealand

There’s a man who is probably dead by the time you read this. He was prominent locally in his community and nationally, and continued his professional work until recently.

Vol 134 No 1537: 25 June 2021

The competition is next door! Why a voluntary approach to tobacco retailer reduction will never work

Richard Portch

In 2011, Te Kāwanatanga o Aotearoa (The New Zealand Government) set the goal to become smokefree by 2025 and have less than 5% of the population smoking daily.

Vol 134 No 1532: 26 March 2021

Perfection: The life and times of Sir William Manchester

Saxon Connor

I recently spent a weekend in Martinborough and as many people do spent some time browsing the local bookshop.

Vol 133 No 1527: 18 December 2020

From Southland to Surgery: A Journey around Values

Richard Acland

Professor John Morton has not only written an intriguing catalogue of the Christchurch surgical scene in the latter part of the 20th century, but has also provided a well-considered philosophy for medical care.

Vol 133 No 1521: 4 September 2020

My Life in Public Health

In the time of Covid, some of the superheroes of the health sector are the public health physicians. This book outlines the active and varied personal and professional life of one New Zealand public health physician.

Vol 132 No 1489: 1 February 2019

Mind That Child; A Medical Memoir

This a book that recounts the experience of the Auckland Starship’s paediatrician Dr Simon Rowley over his professional lifetime.

Vol 132 No 1488: 18 January 2019

Fat Off; the Right Way A clever and sustainable eating guide for weight loss and healthy living

Paul Anderson is a New Zealander who trained in general surgery and works part-time in Australia and part-time in New Zealand.

Vol 132 No 1488: 18 January 2019

The Art of Recovery: six personal journeys

As an editor you receive books for review, which are sent to suitable people following an email agreement to review.

Vol 131 No 1477: 22 June 2018

The Older Traveller: A guide for the health professional