Open AccessIdentifying Māori ethnicity for estimating trends in fatal and serious non‐fatal injury
Author(s) -
Gulliver Pauline J.,
Cryer Colin,
Langley John D.,
Davie Gabrielle S.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of public health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.946
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1753-6405
pISSN - 1326-0200
DOI - 10.1111/j.1753-6405.2011.00730.x
Subject(s) - demography , ethnic group , medicine , indigenous , census , incidence (geometry) , mortality rate , geography , environmental health , population , surgery , biology , physics , sociology , anthropology , optics , ecology
Objectives:Counts of mortality and morbidity based on routinely collected national datasets have undercounted Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. To correct for the undercount, when estimating fatal and serious non‐fatal injury incidence, the ‘ever‐Māori’ method has been used. This study sought to determine how well the ever‐Māori method corrects for the undercount.Methods:Trends in frequencies and age‐standardised rates for fatal injury indicators were compared using: (a) ever‐Māori classification; (b) New Zealand Census Mortality Study adjustment ratios applied to Total Māori counts from the Mortality Collection; and (c) Total Māori counts from the Mortality Collection. For serious non‐fatal injury, trends using ever‐Māori were compared with Total Māori from hospital discharge data.Results:The absolute number of injuries attributable to Māori varied depending on the method used to adjust for ethnicity status, but trends over time were comparable.Conclusions and implications:At present, there is no optimal method for adjusting for the undercount of Māori in routinely collected health databases. Reassuringly, trends in fatal and serious non‐fatal injury are similar across the methods of adjusting for the undercount.