Maori People and Their Health Complications

Running head: MAORI PEOPLE AND THEIR HEALTH COMPLICATIONS
MAORI PEOPLE AND THEIR HEALTH COMPLICATIONS
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1MAORI PEOPLE AND THEIR HEALTH COMPLICATIONS
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

2MAORI PEOPLE AND THEIR HEALTH COMPLICATIONS
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