The Health of Children and Young People with Chronic Conditions and Disabilities in New Zealand 2016

Abstract

This report aims to assist district health boards to plan to meet current and future demands in order to improve the quality of life for children with disabilities and chronic conditions by providing: 1. Information from a range of routinely collected data on children and young people’s disability and chronic conditions, including prevalence of conditions arising in the perinatal period 2. Information about children’s and young people’s use of secondary health services 3. Evidence for good practice derived from current policies, guidelines and evidence-based interventions for each of the indicators presented The choice of indicators included in this report was informed by an indicator framework developed by the NZ Child and Youth Epidemiology Service and by recent peer-reviewed literature about chronic conditions in children and young people. 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.