KEY POINTS:
New Zealanders are living longer than thanks to better health care, according to a new study.
The Health Ministry study found Kiwis were living six years longer than 25 years ago, with two of the extra years due to improved health services.
Better health care for some diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and certain cancers had helped boost New Zealanders' average life expectancy, the ministry's deputy director of public health Fran McGrath said.
"This study shows that getting the health care you need when you need it is critical.
"For most people, that means in the first instance care from your GP, practice nurse and the services they co-ordinate."
Dr McGrath said the difference in life expectancy between ethnic groups and between socio-economic groups varied from four to eight years, depending on the groups being compared.
The study also found that treatable causes of death accounted for about a quarter of that difference.
"Health services and health practitioners make a substantial difference to health inequalities by ensuring early access to high quality services for all," Dr McGrath said.
"However, this study also shows there is scope for further improvement. The challenge to health services is to do even better."
Recent progress in improving early access to health services included lower charges for GP visits and medicines.
The most recent NZ Health Survey, carried out in 2006/07, showed that under 2 per cent of people found cost to be a barrier for going to see their GP, down from 6 per cent in the 2002/3 survey.
"This study suggests that policies to further improve access to care and to provide high quality care for people with chronic conditions could contribute to further improvement in life expectancy for all New Zealanders," Dr McGrath said.
Dr McGrath said the basics of remaining healthy were a clean and safe environment, employment, housing, income and a healthy lifestyle.
"Keeping physically active, eating a healthy diet, being smokefree and drinking only moderately are all well established ways of keeping healthy."
The study is published in the February edition of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.
- NZPA
