Building a systems-thinking community workforce to scale action on determinants of health in New Zealand.

This article describes findings from the evaluation of Healthy Families NZ (HFNZ), an equity-driven, place-based community health initiative. Implemented in nine diverse communities across New Zealand, HFNZ aims to strengthen the systems that can improve health and well-being. Findings highlight local needs and priorities including the social mechanisms important for reorienting health and policy systems towards place-based communities. Lessons encompass the importance of local lived experience in putting evidence into practice; the strength of acting with systems in mind; the need for relational, learning, intentional, and well-resourced community organisation; examples of how to foster place-based 'community-up' leadership; and how to enable responsiveness between communities and local and national policy systems. A reconceptualisation of scaling in the context of complexity and systems change is offered, which recognises that relationships and agency are key to making progress on the determinants of health.

Association between enrolment with a Primary Health Care provider and amenable mortality: A national population-based analysis in Aotearoa New Zealand.

INTRODUCTION: In Aotearoa New Zealand, being enrolled with a Primary Health Care (PHC) provider furnishes opportunities for lower cost access to PHC, preventative care and secondary health care services, and provides better continuity of care. We examine the characteristics of populations not enrolled, and whether enrolment is associated with amenable mortality. METHOD: We retrieved records of all deaths registered 2008 to 2017 in Aotearoa New Zealand, which included demographic and primary cause of death information. Deaths were classified as premature (aged under 75 years) or not, and amenable to health care intervention or not. The Primary Health Organisation (PHO) Enrolment Collection dataset provided the PHC enrolment status. Logistic regression was used to estimate the risk of amenable deaths by PHO enrolment status, adjusted for the effects of age, sex, ethnicity and deprivation. RESULTS: A total of 308,628 mortality records were available. Of these, 38.2% were premature deaths, and among them 47.8% were amenable deaths. Cardiovascular diseases made up almost half of the amenable deaths. Males, youths aged 15-24 years, Pacific peoples, Maori and those living in the most socio-economically deprived areas demonstrated a higher risk of amenable mortality compared to their respective reference category. One in twenty (4.3%) people who had died had no active enrolment status in any of the calendar years in the study. The adjusted odds of amenable mortality among those not enrolled in a PHO was 39% higher than those enrolled [Odds Ratio = 1.39, 95% Confidence Interval 1.30-1.47]. IMPLICATIONS: Being enrolled in a PHC system is associated with a lower level of amenable mortality. Given demonstrated inequities in enrolment levels across age and ethnic groups, efforts to improve this could have significant benefits on health equity.