Racial Inequities in Cardiovascular Disease in New Zealand

The literature is replete with studies pertaining to ethnic inequities in healthcare. A thorny subject that has been described for decades and yet has few remedial solutions. The pattern of ethnic inequities in healthcare is a global phenomenon that is not confined to any specific race or culture. Worldwide, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the topmost cause of death and a substantial burden on healthcare resources. In New Zealand CVD is the leading cause of death, accounting for 40% of all deaths annually. Diminished life expectancy is one example of racial inequity in healthcare between Māori and Pākehā (the non-indigenous population). This review attempts to clarify the muddy waters of 175 years of post-colonial healthcare inequity in New Zealand and in particular the causes of inequity in the incidence of CVD and mortality in Māori . Such dialogue will hopefully stimulate discussion among policy makers and clinicians to redress the ethnic inequities in healthcare

Economic Feasibility of Impermeable Lagoon Covers

Environmental Economics and Policy,

Evaluating a Shared Spaces Intervention. A Case Study of Street Users in Auckland, New Zealand

The environmental qualities of urban spaces have the potential to influence peoples’ behaviours, including mode of transport and physical activity patterns, shopper spending habits, and social engagement and behavioural characteristics. Increasingly, urban planners and transport engineers are integrating concepts such as self -­‐ explaining roads and shared spaces into environmental design approaches, for improved driver behaviour, pedestrian safety, and health behaviours. Despite this, research focusing on the effects of such interventions is limited, largely due to the substantial expense of implementing built environment infrastructure, and a general disconnect between researchers and regulatory bodies responsible for intervention implementation. Greater focu s needs to be on understanding the effects these interventions can have on the general population, to inform future infrastructural initiatives and investment. This study compares the profiles and perceptions of street users immediately post and sixteen mo nths after a major streetscape upgrade to a shared spaces mode in the the Fort Street precinct (central business district), in Auckland, New Zealand. A convenience sample strategy was employed for data collection and participants completed in -­‐ person survey s . Descriptive data treatment and inferential statistical analyses were undertaken to compare user profiles and opinions pre and post streetscape upgrades. In total , 373 street users in the Fort Street precinct participated in this research. Overall, findi ngs indicate positive perceptions of the Fort Street upgrades and positive impacts on health -­‐ related behaviours. Recommendations for further improvements to the area predominantly focused on improving pedestrian safety, including reducing traffic speeds, r educing car usage of the area, and providing better clarity on appropriate driver behaviours.Auckland Council and Auckland Transpor

Economic Feasibility of Impermeable Lagoon Covers

This draft is dated April 2002.This paper addresses the economic feasibility of complying with the proposed rule of “a zero discharge requirement from the production area that does not allow for an overflow under any circumstances,” presented as “Option 5” on page 3060 of the Federal Register (Vol. 66, No. 9, Friday, January 12, 2001). In the proposed rule, the EPA suggested the strategies of improved water management, covered storage or additional storage to meet the no discharge criteria. While improved water management and additional storage may aid in manure management, covered storage was viewed as the only way to guarantee compliance with the “no overflow under any circumstances” wording of the rule. EPA staff have repeatedly indicated that all swine manure storage structures would need to be covered in some way to meet the rule's requirements

Gauging the brownfield land supply in England

This paper reports on the findings of a study that aimed to help fill the information gap left by the loss of the National Land Use Database – and asked ‘Is there enough brownfield land in England to meet housing needs?

On religion and cultural policy: notes on the Roman Catholic Church

This paper argues that religious institutions have largely been neglected within the study of cultural policy. This is attributed to the inherently secular tendency of most modern social sciences. Despite the predominance of the ‘secularisation paradigm’, the paper notes that religion continues to promote powerful attachments and denunciations. Arguments between the ‘new atheists’, in particular, Richard Dawkins, and their opponents are discussed, as is Habermas’s conciliatory encounter with Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). The paper then moves to a consideration of the Roman Catholic Church as an agent of cultural policy, whose overriding aim is the promotion of ‘Christian consciousness’. Discussion focuses on the contested meanings of this, with reference to (1) the deliberations of Vatican II and (2) the exercise of theological and cultural authority by the Pope and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). It is argued that these doctrinal disputes intersect with secular notions of social and cultural policy and warrant attention outside the specialist realm of theological discourse