December 01, 2014
Poverty blighting health of Maori kids
The latest Child Poverty Monitor has found one in four New Zealand children are living in poverty, and for Maori children it's one in three.
About 10 percent or 110,000 children are living in severe poverty and material hardship.
These children are more likely to live in homes where there is a lack of nutritious food, where houses are overcrowded, doctor’s visits are postponed and houses are not heated.
The monitor, which was done by the Office of the Children's Commissioner, the JR McKenzie Trust and the University of Otago's NZ Child and Youth Epidemiology Service, found a small drop in poverty rates from 27 per cent to 24 per cent on the previous year, using the measure of 60 per cent of median income after housing costs.
Service director Dr Jean Simpson says research shows that living in poverty can be bad for children’s health, which can affect a child’s ability educationally and socially.
She says while infant mortality continues to fall, mortality rates are much higher for those living in more deprived areas than those in the least deprived areas of New Zealand.
Rates for deaths from medical conditions with a social gradient were more than three times higher for Maori and over four times higher for Pacific than they are for European children.
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