Abstract
For the past 20 years, the New Zealand Deprivation Index (NZDep) has been the universal measure of area-based social circumstances for New Zealand (NZ) and often the key social determinant used in population health and social research. This paper presents the first theoretical and methodological shift in the measurement of area deprivation in New Zealand since the 1990s and describes the development of the New Zealand Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD).We briefly describe the development of Data Zones, an intermediary geographical scale, before outlining the development of the New Zealand Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), which uses routine datasets and methods comparable to current international deprivation indices. We identified 28 indicators of deprivation from national health, social development, taxation, education, police databases, geospatial data providers and the 2013 Census, all of which represented seven Domains of deprivation: Employment; Income; Crime; Housing; Health; Education; and Geographical Access. The IMD is the combination of these seven Domains. The Domains may be used individually or in combination, to explore the geography of deprivation and its association with a given health or social outcome.Geographic variations in the distribution of the IMD and its Domains were found among the District Health Boards in NZ, suggesting that factors underpinning overall deprivation are inconsistent across the country. With the exception of the Access Domain, the IMD and its Domains were statistically and moderately-to-strongly associated with both smoking rates and household poverty.The IMD provides a more nuanced view of area deprivation circumstances in Aotearoa NZ. Our vision is for the IMD and the Data Zones to be widely used to inform research, policy and resource allocation projects, providing a better measurement of area deprivation in NZ, improved outcomes for Māori, and a more consistent approach to reporting and monitoring the social climate of NZ.
Highlights
There is an unequivocal graded association between area-based deprivation, health and social outcomes in New Zealand [1,2,3,4] and elsewhere.[5,6,7,8,9,10] The accurate measurement of areabased socioeconomic deprivation is vital for planning and for ensuring that resource allocation formulae are equitable and target areas with the highest levels of need
For the overall Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), there was a general trend in which the proportion of Data Zones (DZs) in rural areas decreased with increasing level of deprivation
Using our bespoke Data Zones (DZs), which are an intermediary boundary layer between Census Meshblocks and Area Units, we developed the New Zealand Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) comprising 28 indicators representing seven Domains of deprivation (Income, Employment, Crime, Housing, Health, Education and Geographical Access)
Summary
There is an unequivocal graded association between area-based deprivation, health and social outcomes in New Zealand [1,2,3,4] and elsewhere.[5,6,7,8,9,10] The accurate measurement of areabased socioeconomic deprivation is vital for planning and for ensuring that resource allocation formulae are equitable and target areas with the highest levels of need. Building on the ILD, the first Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) were developed for England in 2000 by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) They used routinely collected data, incorporating direct, (employment, housing, geographic access) and indirect (income, health) measures of the causes and/or consequences of deprivation and were used by the Government to allocate billions of pounds of resources. “blue collar” employees, receiving a means-tested benefit, seeking employment, home ownership, average weekly rental and car ownership) factors to measure deprivation They used Principal Components Analysis to identify the key factors of deprivation and how they differed by gender, for urban or rural areas, and the effect that excluding age-specific variables (e.g. dependent populations) had on the final index. We validate the association between the IMD and its Domains against smoking rates and household-level poverty, before exploring geographic variations in the IMD and its Domains for the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) across NZ
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