Referring to a case study from Auckland, New Zealand, that focuses on the welfare of children, this paper asks the question: does geography matter in the influence of neighbourhood on children’s health?

Background: Prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity has risen dramatically over the last few decades, suggesting a causative role for environmental factors, including activity, diet and eating behaviours.Objectives: To determine the prevalence, change in prevalence and degree of tracking of overweight and obesity in a birth cohort of Dunedin children from age three to seven...

Two of the key challenges for the New Zealand health system are improving quality and reducing inequities in health. My plan was to develop and test a quality improvement intervention for primary care to help close the ethnic health gap for child asthma. To understand the overall context of quality improvement to improve ethnic equity...

Introduction: Despite increasing immunisation coverage in recent years, pertussis remains a leading cause of immunisation preventable disease in New Zealand. The current pertussis epidemic in New Zealand began in August 2011 and did not show signs of abating until May 2013. The current New Zealand immunisation schedule recommends that the first three doses of pertussis...

Congenital anomalies are amongst the leading causes of fetal and infant mortality and morbidity, yet are not consistently monitored within existing indicators used to assess the health and wellbeing of the New Zealand population.