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Poverty is emerging as the dominating issue of the Public Health Association‘s annual conference in New Plymouth.
The conference is hosted by the association’s Maori caucus, so Maori issues have been highlighted.
Marty Rogers, who was the association’s public health champion in 2008, says health workers are facing a hostile political climate when they try to address the systemic causes of things like high Maori rates of heart disease, respiratory, illness and diabetes.
"Underlying the problems that has come out in every single workshop here, underlying the problems for people in our communities is poverty. Poverty of income, poverty of aspiration," she says.
Ms Rogers says public health advocates can’t be afraid of speaking up about injustice and politics, because it is a major factor in people’s well being.
Copyright © 2013, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
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