scholarly journals How universal are universal pre-school health and developmental screens? Evidence from New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI)

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Audas
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Residential Mobility ◽  
School Health ◽  
Developmental Milestones ◽  
Health Records ◽  
Data Infrastructure ◽  
Eligible Population ◽  
Data Files ◽  
Before School ◽  
Conventional Risk Factors

In New Zealand, children participate in a pre-school screen to ensure they are reaching key developmental milestones and not having significant physical, emotional or behavioural issues. This pre-school screen is called the Before School Check (B4SC) and it is intended to be implemented after the child's fourth birthday and before they enter school, after their fifth birthday. If children fall short of key developmental milestones or have other health or behavioural issues, they may be referred to other services so that they these problems can be remediated prior to entry to primary school. In New Zealand, B4SC participation is high, with greater than 90% of the eligible population participating each year. However, the rates of completion are lower, with many children not completing all components. We speculate that non-participation in the B4SC, is concentrated among the most vulnerable of children – those who would most likely benefit from an intervention. In New Zealand, government collected administrative files, including the B4SC are housed in the Statistics New Zealand Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI). We link B4SC records to a variety of data files, including health records, census and measures of residential mobility and find conventional risk factors significantly predict B4SC participation.

scholarly journals Predicting the use Literacy Interventions Using a Pre-School Health and Developmental Screen: Evidence from New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI)

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Audas
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Literacy ◽  
School Health ◽  
Literacy Intervention ◽  
Data Infrastructure ◽  
Literacy Interventions ◽  
Data Files ◽  
Before School ◽  
One Year

Early literacy attainment is a key progression towards advanced learning. All New Zealand schools offer interventions for children who are farthest from standard in literacy, although these interventions typically do not commence until the child has been in school for one year. Considerable evidence demonstrates that literacy interventions can be effective, if implemented as early as possible. As such there is significant benefit in quickly identifying those most at risk of failing to meet the literacy standard. In New Zealand all children are expected to get a Before School Check (B4SC) between their fourth birthday and prior to entering school. These checks are generally conducted by public health nurses, with children's health and developmental status being divided into seven categories. Data linkage across government collected administrative data files can be conducted in the Statistics New Zealand Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI). The IDI provides a whole of population inter-departmental architecture to link individuals. In this study, we link individual's B4SC records to school interventions data as well as to birth and census records. Using a time-to-event approach, we find that there is significant predictive value in using B4SC to identify children who are at risk of requiring a literacy intervention.

Residential mobility and socioemotional and behavioural difficulties in a preschool population cohort of New Zealand children

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (10) ◽  
pp. 947-953 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Nathan ◽  
Oliver Robertson ◽  
Polly Atatoa Carr ◽  
Philippa Howden-Chapman ◽  
Nevil Pierse
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Residential Mobility ◽  
Data Infrastructure ◽  
Linear Association ◽  
Population Cohort ◽  
Behavioural Difficulties ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Address Data ◽  
Strengths And Difficulties ◽  
Before School

BackgroundFindings regarding early residential mobility and increased risk for socioemotional and behavioural (SEB) difficulties in preschool children are mixed, with some studies finding no evidence of an association once known covariates are controlled for. Our aim was to investigate residential mobility and SEB difficulties in a population cohort of New Zealand (NZ) children.MethodsData from the Integrated Data Infrastructure were examined for 313 164 children born in NZ since 2004 who had completed the Before School Check at 4 years of age. Residential mobility was determined from address data. SEB difficulty scores were obtained from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire administered as part of the Before School Check.ResultsThe prevalence of residential mobility was 69%; 12% of children had moved ≥4 times. A linear association between residential mobility and increased SEB difficulties was found (B=0.58), which remained robust when controlling for several known covariates. Moves >10 km and moving to areas of higher socioeconomic deprivation were associated with increased SEB difficulties (B=0.08 and B=0.09, respectively), while residential mobility before 2 years of age was not. Children exposed to greater residential mobility were 8% more likely to obtain SEB difficulties scores of clinical concern than children exposed to fewer moves (adjusted OR 1.08).ConclusionThis study found a linear association between residential mobility and increased SEB difficulties in young children. This result highlights the need to consider residential mobility as a risk factor for SEB difficulties in the preschool years.

scholarly journals Residential Mobility and Changes in Deprivation Levels For 0 – 4 Year Olds in New Zealand

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Robertson ◽  
Kim Nathan ◽  
Philippa Howden-Chapman ◽  
Michael Baker ◽  
Polly Atatoa Carr ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Residential Mobility ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Data Infrastructure ◽  
High Deprivation ◽  
Residential Moves ◽  
Government Data ◽  
Deprived Areas

IntroductionHigh residential mobility has been shown to have a negative impact on young children, with long-term consequences for their physical and mental health, and social outcomes. Understanding the broad trends in moves and differentiating between moves to neighbourhoods which are likely to have ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ consequences is an important question in the residential mobility literature, with important implications for public policy and children’s health. Objectives and ApproachThe aims of this study are to describe the level and changes in neighbourhood deprivation that occur during residential moves involving children aged 0–4 years of age in New Zealand, and to assess whether these changes differ for children of different ethnicities. Our cohort is 565,689 children born in New Zealand from 2004 to 2018. The dataset of residential moves is created using the full address notification table from the Integrated Data Infrastructure, a set of government data tables that have been linked and anonymised by Statistics New Zealand. ResultsWhile there is a reasonable amount of mobility in terms of the deprivation of the area in which a child lives, the most likely outcome of a move is that it will be to an area with the same level of deprivation. This is especially true for the most and least deprived areas. Areas of high deprivation have the highest levels of churn and residential mobility. Māori and Pasifika children have lower levels of socioeconomic mobility and are more likely to move into and to stay in, areas of high deprivation. Conclusion / ImplicationsChildren living in highly deprived areas are likely to stay in high deprivation areas. Children living in these areas also move more frequently than the general population. Māori and Pasifika children are overrepresented in high deprivation areas, and on average they move more frequently than the group of all children aged 0 – 4.

Children as change agents for family health

2017 ◽  
Vol 117 (5) ◽  
pp. 498-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisette Burrows
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
School Health ◽  
Health Knowledge ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Family Health ◽  
School Health Promotion ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Agents Of Change

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore ways in which children and young people are being positioned as change agents for families through school health promotion initiatives in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach The paper maps and describes the kinds of policies and initiatives that directly or indirectly regard children as conduits of healthy eating and exercise messages/practices for families. Drawing on post-structural theoretical frameworks, it explores what these resources suggest in terms of how healthy families should live. Findings Families are positioned as central to school health promotion initiatives in New Zealand, especially in relation to obesity prevention policies and strategies. Children are further positioned as agents of change for families in many of the resources/policies/initiatives reviewed. They are represented as key transmitters and translators of school-based health knowledge and as capable of, and responsible for, helping their families eat well and exercise more. Social implications While recognising children’s agency and capacity to translate health messages is a powerful and welcome message at one level, the author need to consider the implications of requiring children to convey health information, to judge their family practices and, at times, to be expected to change these. This may create anxiety, family division and expect too much of children. Originality/value The paper takes a novel post-structural perspective on a familiar health promotion issue. Given the proliferation of family-focussed health initiatives in New Zealand and elsewhere, this perspective may help us to explore, critique and understand more fully how children are expected to be engaged in these initiatives, and the potentially harmful implications of these expectations.

scholarly journals Researching social justice and health (in)equality across different school Health and Physical Education contexts in Sweden, Norway and New Zealand

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 273-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Göran Gerdin ◽  
Rod Allan Philpot ◽  
Lena Larsson ◽  
Katarina Schenker ◽  
Susanne Linnér ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Physical Education ◽  
School Health ◽  
Neoliberal Globalization ◽  
Health And Physical Education ◽  
Physical Education Teacher Education ◽  
Paper Record ◽  
Social Justice Teaching ◽  
Equitable Outcomes

The way school Health and Physical Education (HPE) is conceptualized and taught will impact on its ability to provide equitable outcomes across gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion and social class. A focus on social justice in HPE is pertinent in times when these ideals are currently under threat from neoliberal globalization. This paper draws on data from the initial year of an international collaboration project called ‘Education for Equitable Health Outcomes – The Promise of School Health and Physical Education’ involving HPE and Physical Education Teacher Education researchers from Sweden, Norway and New Zealand. The data in this paper record the researchers’ presentations and discussions about issues of social justice and health as informed by school visits and interviews with HPE teachers in the three different countries. The analysis of the data is focused on what is addressed in the name of social justice in each of the three countries and how cross-cultural researchers of social justice in HPE interpret different contexts. In order to analyse the data, we draw on Michael Uljens’s concepts of non-affirmative and non-hierarchical education. The findings suggest that researching social justice and health (in)equality across different countries offers both opportunities and challenges when it comes to understanding the enactment of social justice in school and HPE practices. We conclude by drawing on Uljens to assert that the quest for social justice in HPE should focus on further problematizing affirmative and hierarchical educational practices since social justice teaching strategies are enabled and constrained by the contexts in which they are practised.

Agriculturalizing finance? Data assemblages and derivatives markets in small-town New Zealand

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 989-1007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Henry ◽  
Russell Prince
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Small Town ◽  
Futures Market ◽  
Dairy Production ◽  
Data Infrastructure ◽  
Relational Work ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Derivatives Markets

The financialization of agriculture appears to be proceeding apace. In New Zealand, the creation of a futures market for dairy lends weight to this story. What is less well understood about the process of financialization in agriculture, however, is how exactly it is proceeding. This paper focuses on NZXAgri, an offshoot of the New Zealand sharemarket operator NZX, which is tasked with the creation of the dairy derivatives market, and on the data infrastructure that is being assembled to underpin this trading space. The making of NZXAgri has been a complex process, resulting from the dissipation of a previous agriculture data assemblage during neoliberalization, and now with multiple political and economic projects partially aligned under its banner. Meanwhile, the emerging data assemblage relies on all manner of material and immaterial relational work to produce the necessary dairy production information for consumption by international financial actors. It is this kind of assembling work that is shaping the financialization of agriculture, and it requires constant negotiation with the diverse agencies of farmers and their rural contexts. This suggests that we are seeing the agriculturalization of finance alongside the financialization of agriculture.

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