Household crowding
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- About one in seven children aged 0-14 years (15.9%) lived in crowded houses in 2013.
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Second-hand smoke exposure |
- Around 29,000 children aged 0–14 years were exposed to second-hand smoke in the home in 2015/16.
- Exposure to second-hand smoke for children has decreased considerably from 9.6% in 2006/07 to 3.2% in 2015/16.
- Children living in the most deprived neighbourhoods (NZDep2013 quintile 5) were 18.1 times as likely to be exposed to second-hand smoke in the home than those in the least deprived areas.
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Maternal smoking |
- Maternal smoking rates at two weeks postnatal have decreased from 13.7% in 2009 to 8.6% in 2020.
- Māori mothers had higher smoking rates than other ethnic groups between 2009 and 2020. However, smoking rates among Māori mothers have declined from 32.3% in 2009 to 23.0% in 2020.
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Asthma |
- Asthma hospitalisations in children aged 0–14 years have increased by more than 50% in 2021 after a substantial drop the previous year.
- Asthma hospitalisations declined after COVID-19 lockdown periods in 2020 and 2021.
- The highest asthma hospitalisation rates were in children 0-4 years, Pacific children, and children living in the most deprived areas.
- Asthma prevalence in children aged 2–14 years in 2020/21 has declined from previous years.
- The prevalence of asthma has declined in children 2–4 years (6.0%) in 2020/21, the lowest since 2011/12.
- Māori and Pacific children were more likely to have medicated asthma than non-Māori children and non-Pacific children, respectively.
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Lower respiratory tract infections |
- Marked reduction in LRTI hospitalisations in 0–4 year olds coincided with the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.
- The usual winter LRTI hospitalisation peak was down by 85% in 2020.
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Sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) |
- 38 babies died from SUDI (0.6 per 1,000 live births) in 2018, down from 48 deaths (0.8 per 1,000 live births) the previous year.
- Pacific and Māori babies had five times the rate of SUDI as European/Other babies in 2014–18. Babies of younger mothers (younger than 25 years) had higher SUDI rates than babies born to mothers in older age groups.
- The SUDI rate for babies living in the most socioeconomically deprived areas (NZDep2013 quintile 5) was six times as high as babies in the least deprived areas (quintile 1).
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Meningococcal disease |
- The number of meningococcal notifications dropped from 67 in 2019, to 16 in 2020.
- Meningococcal Group B continues to be the most dominant strain in children.
- Infants (under 1 year -year-old) continue to have the highest rate of meningococcal disease since 2001. They had 35 times the rate of meningococcal disease as children aged 10–14 years in 2018–20.
- The highest notification rates were in infants, Māori children, Pacific children, and children living in the most deprived areas.
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