Abstract
New governments are fortunate in being able to use modern techniques to help them take evidence-informed decisions about which health priorities to focus on, and how to achieve maximum health gains. In this Briefing we firstly outline how evidence identifies the condition
causing the greatest health loss in the Aotearoa NZ: cardiovascular disease. And secondly how evidence informs how governments can maximise health gain and cost-savings from specific interventions that have been studied for NZ. For example, we show a combined fruit and
vegetable subsidy plus a sugar tax produces estimated lifetime savings of 894,000 health-adjusted life years and health system cost-savings of $19.4 billion. Applying an equity lens would also favour this dietary intervention for advancing Māori health.
A new government has the opportunity to apply modern epidemiological techniques to optimise the selection of public health interventions. In this Briefing we use the example of interventionsto prevent cardiovascular disease (CVD) – the highest ranked cause of death and
disability in Aotearoa New Zealand.