Ageing, loneliness, and the geographic distribution of New Zealand's interRAI-HC cohort.

Loneliness is a significant negative predictor of ageing well and a contra-indicator for resilience against requiring long-term residential care. Health geographers can contribute to the loneliness and ageing literature through examining how exposures in the physical and social landscape can affect positive and negative health outcomes. As well as improving individual experiences of ageing, spatial analysis may help to contribute to better understandings of loneliness and help reduce the $1.

Comprehensive clinical assessment of home-based older persons within New Zealand: an epidemiological profile of a national cross-section.

Objective: Since 2012, all community care recipients in New Zealand have undergone a standardised needs assessment using the Home Care International Residential Assessment Instrument (interRAI-HC). This study describes the national interRAI-HC population, assesses its data quality and evaluates its ability to be matched.

Methods: The interRAI-HC instrument elicits information on 236 questions over 20 domains; conducted by 1,800+ trained health professionals.

Social and spatial inequalities in Rotaviral enteritis: a case for universally funded vaccination in New Zealand.

Aims: Rotaviruses have long been recognised as the most common cause of diarrhoea-related childhood morbidity and mortality worldwide. The benefits of national rotavirus vaccination programmes have been proven, with estimates of the reduction in hospital stays ranging from 70% to 90%. Previous work has found spatial variation in rotaviral rates between areas in Australia and Germany.

Population access to hospital emergency departments and the impacts of health reform in New Zealand.

In the current political climate of evidence-based research, GIS has emerged as a powerful research tool as it allows spatial and social health inequality to be explored efficiently. This article explores the impact health reforms had on geographical accessibility to hospital emergency department (ED) services in New Zealand from 1991 to 2001. Travel time was calculated using least-cost path analysis, which identified the shortest travel time from each census enumeration district through a road network to the nearest ED.