Maori People and Their Health Complications

This article discusses the health complications faced by the Maori community in New Zealand, with a focus on smoking as a major contributor. It also explores the He Korowai Oranga strategy and its alignment with the NZ government's health strategy. The article provides demographic data for the Rotorua district and analyzes the effectiveness of the chosen strategy in improving the health of the Maori community.

Running head: MAORI PEOPLE AND THEIR HEALTH COMPLICATIONS
MAORI PEOPLE AND THEIR HEALTH COMPLICATIONS
Name of the Student
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Introduction
Maori people are one of the oldest citizen of New Zealand and are present in this country
from more than 1000 years. They are indigenous population of New Zealand and has their
mythical Polynesian homeland, which is Hawaiki (Smith, 2012). They are spread in different
countries across continents such as Australia, United Kingdom, Unites States and Canada,
however their presence is maximum in New Zealand and they have created their own language,
culture and a rich mythology in this land. Further, they are one of the major cultural groups in
New Zealand, who has maximum numbers of unmet health needs throughout New Zealand.
According to the government reports from 2013, smoking was one of the leading risks for health
complications and accounted 9 percent of total illness, disability and premature mortality. Total
21 percent NZ people smokes on daily basis and within this Maori people are 44 percent
(Government of NZ, 2017).
This assignment is going to present smoking as one of the originator of health
complications in Maori population and will use He Korowai Oranga: Maori health strategy.
Further, it will provide introduction about the aim, target group and rationale of the chosen
strategy and will analyses it to support it. Along with these topics, the assignment will provide
the demographics of the chosen area Rotorua and finally the critical analysis will be provided to
discuss the effect of implementation of this strategy in helping the Maori community and solving
their health problems related to smoking.
Aim, target population and rationale for strategy
The prime aim of the New Zealand government is to improve outcomes for the Maori
community and target health equity for their community. Further, the government want to focus

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on the evidence-based practice for the benefit of Maori population and using health strategies
across the nation and its organization. The aims of this assignment is to find out the effects of the
He Korowai Oranga strategy and its benefits in improvement of Maori health. The assignment
specifically aims the issue of smoking in Maori people as the number of smokers in Maori are
comparatively high than other NZ population (Whittaker et al., 2012).
The target group here is Maori population as the rate of smoking in this community is
higher than any other community. The rate of Maori male smokers was 40 percent and 49.7
percent smokers were female in the year 2009. The rate in non-Maori Male was 20.9 percent,
which is half of the Maori male. Maximum number of Maori youth are affected with smoking
habits. The rate of smoking in 15-19 year old Maori female was 47.1 percent, and the same in
Maori male youth was 29.2 percent, which was 3 times higher than non-Maori male and female
youth. This is why the Maori people has been chosen as the target population to find out the rate
of smoking in and health disparities due to this habit (New Zealand Maori Culture, 2017).
He Korowai Oranga has been chosen as the health promotion strategy for Maori people in
NZ as it uses a web-based living strategy for promotion of healthcare and wellbeing among
people of Maori community throughout the country. This strategy uses pathways to connect the
families of this community using community development, increasing participation of Maori
people in healthcare and other sectors and effective service delivery, which enables the access of
this strategy to populations (Ministry of Health, 2017). This strategy is the fusion of three
different NZ government policies such as health strategy, disability strategy, and the public
health and disability act 2000. Therefore, it ties the entire health and wellbeing sector in the
betterment of Maori community. Therefore, this strategy has been chosen (He Korowai Oranga:
Māori Health Strategy, 2017).

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Alignment of this strategy with NZ government’s health strategy
The Maori health strategy was developed in 2002 and it has been recently revised in
2014. It is built on the foundation of Whānau Ora, which is an approach to empower the
communities and prolonged families to cooperate with each other to make a Maori community.
Hapy, iwi, health care providers and hospital facilities, well-being expert and group specialists
will be the important part of this community. The five important ways by which the He Korowai
Oranga Health strategy for Maori aligns with that of the health improvement strategies of NZ
government for Maori people (Andersen & Lambert, 2012). The specific aims of Maori health
strategy, presented in the NZ government’s health policy are:
 Overall development of Kiwi, Hapy, Maori and Whanua communities.
 Expanding these communities access to healthcare strategies, disability services
and improving their participation (McElnay et al., 2012).
 Working across all sectors to remove barriers to health and social service at all
levels (Pathways for action, 2017).
 The first and important strategy of He Korowai Oranga strategy is to support the
community of Maori people to achieve the maximum health and wellbeing. This
is the primary aim of New Zealand government’s healthcare strategies as the
Maori people are deprived of healthcare and the number of unmet needs are
higher in them (Ministry of Health NZ, 2017).
 Secondly, the He Korowai Oranga strategy Whanau ora provides a tool for health
and disability sector. This strategy will enhance the population to work with iwi
Maori and other communities so that the health quality and life span of these

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people can be increased. The NZ government is also dedicated to finish the health
and other disparities and therefore, the He Korowai Oranga strategy aligns with
NZ government’s strategy.
 This strategy helps to create a framework for the Maori health strategy and sets
the direction of health development in health and disability sector. The strategy
also asks the public sector to take responsibility of this framework to make it
successful (He Korowai Oranga: Māori Health Strategy, 2017).
Demographic of Rotorua district and the smoking data for Maori
The Maori community is suffering from smoking related problems since ages. Therefore,
smoking is one of the potential barrier of fulfillment of goals, set for the Maori community. For
this purpose, evaluation of the regional and national data related to smoking and related disorders
is important. This will help to understand the severity and effectiveness of the problem and the
government will become aware of the needs of the community, deprived population and health
problems among them. Rotoura is a city present in the southern shore of the lake Rotoura. This
lake is present in the Northern island of New Zealand. The demographics of this district is
inclusive of people from European ethnicity with 67 percent and 37 percent of Maori population.
The Maori community is concentrated in this place, and according to the data, 3.7 percent of the
entire Maori population lives in this place. Maori language is the second most spoken language
in this region and the Maori are the most health-deprived community in this district. According
to the 2013 national demographics of New Zealand, total population is 4.7 million and among
them, about 14.9% consist of Maori population (QuickStats about a place: Rotorua district,
2017).

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According to the data of the Rotoura district, in 2009, the rate of smoker Maoris in the
district was 44 percent and the non-Maori rate was 22 percent (Ministry of Health NZ, 2017).
Maori people were asked about their smoking habits in healthcare centers and health promotional
camps more than any community staying in the community was. All age groups of Maori people
were higher smokers compared to other communities throughout New Zealand. There are 62
percent of the Maori community people, who are under a government driven program to quit
smoking. Within the Maori community, female had higher rate of smoking habits than that of
Maori males, regionally and nationally. According to the local rates of Rotoura, the rate of
smoking in 15 to 20 year old Maori people 27.6 percent. The number of people registered as
smokers in rotoura in 2013 was 9792, and above all, smoking was one of the biggest reason for
deaths in this district and 120 people died of smoking related health complications in the year
2013 (Government of NZ, 2017). Data from the government shows that from age20 to 24, 65
percent of Maori males and 55 percent of Maori females were addicted to smoking compared to
25 percent of non-Maori males and females (New Zealand Health Strategy, 2016).
Implementation of chosen strategy and health improvements in Māori
There are four ways presented in this He Korowai Oranga strategy for Maori people
regarding problem of smoking. The first pathway is gin got develop the overall status of the
community. The educational, health, wellbeing, economic, and rich cultural status is going to
help them gain confidence and opportunities in sectors that are going to improve the condition of
their Socio-economic status. The prime reason of smoking in this community is stress, illiteracy
and lack of health related knowledge. This pathway supports the strategy by removing all these
barriers and disabilities (Ministry of Health, 2017).

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The second strategy discuss about the participation of this community in health and
disability sector. This enhances the decision-making ability of Maori people in service delivery.
This will help to work with Maori and other communities to improve their health. This strategy
will help to increase the number of Maori people in the health workforce, expand their skill and
will enable equitable access for Maori to training opportunities. These goals will help them to
spread the effect of smoking across the population and will help to promote this health strategy
in their deprived community (He Korowai Oranga: Māori Health Strategy, 2017).
The third strategy discusses about effective health and disability service. The Maori
people is suffering from health complications as they are unaware of the harmful effect of their
habits and there is no such local organization that can help them to educate about these health
stressors. Therefore, a local organization need to be established so that the risk of health can be
lowered for their community (The Health of Māori Adults and Children, 2017). The fourth
pathway talks about contribution of different sectors in this health improvement strategy. This
strategy demands the involvement of different private tobacco company to contribute in the
advertisement of harmful effects of tobacco on the health of people. Legislative actions also
could be taken to display the caution of harmfulness on the packets of tobacco so that people
become aware of it. This will be done by linking governmental councils with local boards to
educate the population throughout the rotoura district and the country (He Korowai Oranga:
Māori Health Strategy, 2017).
Finally, in critical analysis, it can be said that it is a web strategy, thus all the
communities such as hapu, iwi, whanau and Maori can get access to the healthcare strategies and
resources for their betterment. The government, disability sector and the private sector are
working together for the betterment of the smoke addicted population and therefore they are

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being able to address the unmet needs of the Maori population. However, the government is not
being able to stop the smoking traits in a large section of population, because the health stressors
and mental stressors of the society are not completely removed. Racism, color caste creed are
some issues that the Maori population has to suffer on a daily basis and such physical and mental
pressure increases the rate of smokers (New Zealand Health Strategy Future direction, 2017).
Conclusion
This assignment was discussing about the Maori community of New Zealand, who,
despite of having a rich cultural and social history, is one of the deprived community of NZ.
They have the highest number of unmet needs in NZ. Hence, the government, to increase their
health related knowledge and improve their condition, both socially and economically, has
implemented the He Korowai Oranga strategy. The strategy discusses about four strategies
through which, the Māori community can be a part of the bigger community of the country and
utilize their skills to improve their as well as other’s health conditions. The assignment also
discussed the way the NZ government is using this strategy for the betterment of the community
regarding smoking. Its health deleterious effects and provides the statistical data to comply with
the same have also been mentioned.

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