Holding a mirror to society? The sociodemographic characteristics of the University of Otago’s health professional students
Peter Crampton, Naomi Weaver, Andrea Howard
The sociodemographic profile of health professional students is important because, in part, these characteristics influence future career choices in terms of place of practice and types of populations served. Overall, students in eight health professional programmes at the University of Otago in 2010 were largely from outside the Otago region and were either New Zealand citizens or permanent residents. Female students were slightly over-represented. In 2010 the majority of health professional students self-identified as being within the New Zealand European and Other ethnic category (65.0%), 34.2% as Asian, 6.3% as M ori, and 2.3% as Pacific. A large proportion of health professional students came from well-off socioeconomic areas and only 3.4% of students had attended secondary schools with a socioeconomic decile of less than 4. If the University is to fully achieve its mission to serve the needs of society then ongoing effort is required to refine its selection processes, within the constraints and limitations of the available selection tools, and its targeted student support mechanisms.
