The Health of Children and Young People with Chronic Conditions and Disabilities in MidCentral and Whanganui 2016

Abstract

Chronic conditions and disabilities often affect people for life. Having a good quality of life and flourishing to your best ability is dependent, at least in part, on what happened as you were growing up. Understanding the dimensions of chronic conditions and disabilities among children and young people is essential to planning and developing good quality health services for New Zealand’s children and young people. Two issues were selected by participating DHBs for review and inclusion in this report: Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) by Judith Adams, and the Health needs of children and young people in State care by Mavis Duncanson.

This report reviews the prevalence of a range of disabilities and chronic conditions experienced by children and young people living in New Zealand. These conditions place demands on health and disability support services. This report provides information on the secondary health service utilisation patterns of children and young people with chronic conditions and disabilities. It is unable to provide data on all health service use as these data are not collated nationally. It does, however, aim to provide some insights into two quite different perspectives of disability and chronic conditions: the consequences and management of children with fetal alcohol syndrome, and a review of the health needs of children in care.