Hauora hinengaro

I think hauora hinengaro, mental health, deserves to be talked about seperately.

It's often assumed to be included in general health but doesn't really get the attention that it deserves.

In the Māori Health Chart Book 2015 referred to in the previous post there's a single table (38):



The key thing here is that Māori adults were one-and-a-half times as likely as non-Māori adults to report a high or very high probability of having an anxiety or depressive disorder.

Still, that doesn't exactly paint a picture. Mental health is often simply prefaced to physical health and barely rates a mention.


Maori Mental Health Needs Profile: A review of the evidence published by the Department of Health
gets more specific and concludes that:

Disorder prevalence and difference between Māori and non-Māori varied between disorders. Māori were 1.2 times more likely to have a major depressive disorder, 1.6 times more likely to have an anxiety disorder, 2.8 times more likely to have a conduct disorder, and 1.5 times more likely to have a substance disorder than nonMāori.

Although there's variability between kinds of disorders there's definitely marked inequality.

Next post: Real people