CATI - Population Health Surveys
A New Zealand Perspective

Presented by Helen Wyn, Manager, Public Health Group, Ministry of Health, New Zealand.

• Setting the Context
• New Zealand-specific Issues
• Partnerships and the globalisation of data

National Population Health Monitoring: the Ministry of Health Framework

• State of the Public Health reporting cycle

Realignment of Ministry of Health structure and functions into 5 branches

Public Health Legislation Review - Why?

• Volume and complexity of public health legislation
• Inflexibility of the legislation
• Role confusion and poor co-ordination with other laws
• Barriers to development of innovative solutions to public health problems

Public Health Legislation Review

Key proposal: to provide a new Public Health Act which provides for a flexible, risk-management and outcomes focused legislative framework with clear responsibilities and accountabilities.

New regulatory environment for public health

• analysis of outbreaks
• case-control studies
• needs assessment
• risk perception
• evaluation of benefits of interventions

Using CATI in New Zealand

• Not used for national population health monitoring
• Limited use for national surveys by Auckland University
• Used for local needs assessment by former Regional Health Authorities
• Commercial research firms and response rates

Treaty of Waitangi

• Maori health gain a Key Result Area for Government
• Partnership approach to data collection and research
• Need to obtain adequate sample sizes
• Over-researched population
• Ownership of data

Questions and Challenges ...

• Accessing hard-to-reach populations

Telephone ownership rates vary

*Approximate figures

• Suitability for indigenous populations
• Over sampling of a small national population with even smaller sub-populations
• Appropriateness of CATI for all types of population health surveys?

Partnerships and the globalisation of data

• Developments in telecommunications
• NZ as an off-shore "state" of Australasia
• Treaty with Australia on harmonisation of food standards (ANZFA)
• Learning from the Australian experience with CATI

Globalisation requirements

• Common data definitions and fields
• Ability to data share: technical, legal and ethical issues
• Timing of surveys
• Prioritisation of surveys topics
• Funding ...

Last thoughts

New kids on the block

Conducive environment for implementing CATI population health surveys

Authorised by: Executive Officer, NPHP
Contact: Darryl Kosch, nphp@dhs.vic.gov.au
Date of publication: 1999
Page last updated: 27 November, 2003

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