January 23, 2024
Māori come up clean in squalor survey
A new study has found elderly Māori are less likely to live in squalor than their Pākeha contemporaries.
The Public Health Communication Centre surveyed Age Concern branches and local body environmental health officers to assess the extent of the problem.
Co-author Dr Jonathan Jarman says he followed up by asking Māori about the discrepancy in the Māori rate. and identified three factors.
“Māori are more likely to be living in rental properties, which means that the landlord would have moved them on when it got that bad;. there are not so many elderly compared with Pākeha; perhaps tikanga, being brought up in te ao Māori and tikanga and tapu and noa meant it was less likely that people would live in these sorts of conditions,” he says.
Dr Jarman says a coordinated multi-agency approach is needed to take care of those living in those conditions.