Issue 327 - 7 August 2025

Welcome to the fortnightly Health Improvement and Innovation Digest. The Digest has links to key evidence of interest, with access to new content arranged by topic.

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Article Access

For articles that aren't open access, contact your Health NZ district library, or organisational or local library for assistance in accessing the full text. If your organisation has a subscription, you may be able to use the icon under full text links in PubMed to access the full article.

Māori Innovation

Reclaiming the threads: Re-Narrating Māori stories in new spaces
This paper, published in Journal of Global Indigeneity, explores the translation of Māori research data into innovative formats and spaces that enhance communication with a broad audience, including Indigenous communities and other key stakeholders.

Health Equity (New Zealand)

The processes and impacts of co-designed health interventions by and for Pacific populations: a scoping review
Globally, Pacific peoples face significant inequities across a range of health issues. While it is increasingly recognised that Pacific communities should be partners in the development of health interventions intended to benefit them, less is understood about the effectiveness or outcomes of these processes. This scoping review, published in BMC Public Health, aimed to explore how health interventions co-designed by Pacific communities are defined, undertaken and the health outcomes that they achieve.

Feminising the Healthy Migrant Effect: inequities and practices in the reproductive health of ethnic migrant women in Aotearoa New Zealand
Despite the perceptible feminisation of migration globally and in New Zealand, there remains a noticeable absence of a gendered perspective of the Healthy Migrant Effect (HME). This paper, published in Kōtuitui, seeks to articulate a critical perspective on ethnic and migrant women’s reproductive health deploying two established bodies of scholarship, the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) and Social Practices theory.

Rethinking place in ethnic and migrant health outcomes: environmental racialisation in Auckland City Centre (CBD)
The healthy migrant effect scholarship makes limited, if any, connections between the impacts of the physical environments of the host country on the health outcomes of migrants. The aim of this paper, published in Kōtuitui, is to understand environmental racism/racialisation in the context of migrant-concentrated neighbourhoods in urban settings. Focusing on interactions between built structural spaces and meaning-embodied places, this paper adapts international literature to map intentional and unintentional actions that have racialised outcomes on health determinants, and perceptions and experiences of physical health and wellbeing.

Cultural Safety Knowledge and Practices Among Internationally Qualified Nurses Caring for Indigenous Peoples in Australia, New Zealand and Canada: A Scoping Review
Culturally safe practices are crucial for equitable health care for Indigenous Peoples. Despite the vital role of internationally qualified nurses in delivering patient care in the host countries, there is limited evidence on their knowledge and practices of cultural safety. This paper, published in the Journal of Transcultural Nursing, aims to identify and map existing evidence on cultural safety knowledge and practices among internationally qualified nurses in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Quality Improvement (New Zealand)

Whānau-reported experiences of safety netting discharge advice in a paediatric context: a quality improvement project for Kaitaia Hospital
The aim of this study, published in The New Zealand Medical Journal, was to identify the strengths and weaknesses of safety netting advice given on discharge received by whānau for Kaitaia-domiciled paediatric patients in Aotearoa.

Quality Improvement (International)

The meaning of ‘quality’ of homecare for older people: a scoping review
How quality of care in homecare for older people is understood is important, because it influences how quality in homecare is delivered, improved, regulated and measured. This scoping review, published in BMC Health Services Research, aimed to summarise the meanings of homecare quality for key stakeholders and identify measures of homecare quality.

Patient safety measures for virtual consultations in primary care: a systematic review
With the growing adoption of virtual consultations in primary care, the need for tailored metrics to evaluate their safety became increasingly urgent. This systematic review, published in BMJ Quality & Safety, seeks to identify and review existing safety measures that could be used for safety evaluation of virtual consultations in primary care.

Cancer Services (New Zealand)

Follow-Up Strategies in Colorectal Cancer: What Do Patients Prefer?
Increasing numbers of colorectal cancer patients and healthcare constraints mean novel follow-up strategies need to be considered. The optimal method of follow-up is unclear; however, a patient-tailored model could reduce costs, improve patient experience, and improve overall health. The aim of this study, published in ANZ Journal of Surgery, was to explore patients' perspectives on current and alternative follow-up strategies and barriers to follow-up, to create a patient-led framework to guide further development of colorectal cancer follow-up.

Disparities in time to breast cancer surgery in New Zealand by level of neighbourhood deprivation: a population-based study
The New Zealand (NZ) Faster Cancer Treatment (FCT) plan aims for equitable cancer treatment irrespective of sociodemographic factors. Research on its impact on breast cancer surgery times is limited. This study, published in Cancer Causes & Control, evaluates whether there are differences by level of neighbourhood deprivation in time to surgery in women with early-stage breast cancer in NZ between 2000 and 2020 and whether this association differs pre- and post- FCT implementation.

Primary Health Care (New Zealand)

Te Aorerekura: towards eliminating family violence – reflections from the Atawhai project
Family violence is an under-recognised contributor to ill-health. This paper, published in Policy Quarterly, explores Atawhai a three-year research project focusing on sustainable responses to family violence in primary healthcare services, suggests that relationships and networks among locality-based service providers and local communities will help in making New Zealand’s strategy to eliminate family violence a reality.

Primary Mental Health (New Zealand)

At the intersection of ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation: mental health status of ethnic minority youth in Aotearoa New Zealand
This study, published in Kōtuitui, employed an intersectionality approach to examine mental health outcomes among ethnic minority youth in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Primary Mental Health (International)

Community-based Suicide Interventions in Rural United States: A Scoping Review
Rural communities in the United States are disproportionately burdened with higher suicide rates than non-rural ones, facing structural and cultural barriers that make it less likely for suicidal individuals to obtain help. Community-based interventions have been called for to address the need for integrative approaches relevant to the rural landscape. This scoping review, published in Community Mental Health Journal, evaluates the state-of-the-science around community-based suicide interventions in rural United States.

General practitioners' perspectives regarding suicide prevention: a systematic scoping review
Suicide is a major public health issue. Up to a third of patients will visit their General Practitioner (GP) in the month leading up to a suicide attempt, thus highlighting the key role GPs play in suicide prevention. This systematic scoping review, published in BJGP Open, aimed to explore the qualitative research on GPs' perspectives of suicide prevention in primary care.

Smoking Cessation (International)

Smoking Cessation Interventions for Young Adults - A Scoping Review
In the UK, the highest proportion of current smokers is in the 25-34 age group. Whilst there are effective smoking cessation interventions, they are not always accessed by young adults. This review, published in Substance Use & Misuse, explores smoking cessation strategies for young people.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of text messaging interventions to support tobacco cessation
The objective of this paper, published in Tobacco Control, was to review randomised controlled trials investigating the effectiveness of text message-based interventions for smoking cessation, including the effects of dose and concomitant use of behavioural or pharmacological interventions.

Oral Health (New Zealand)

Oral Health Inequities: Using Every Opportunity for Opportunistic Oral Healthcare
The aim of this study, published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, was to determine if caries-free rates and the number of teeth affected by caries in children from inpatient, day stay, and specialist outpatient clinic groups differed significantly from the population and by ethnicity.

Health Sector Initiative

Powerful partnership to enhance lives of Pacific disability communities
Le Va and Foundation North are two organisations with a commitment to enhancing the lives of others by enabling, uplifting and empowering communities. Ben Tameifuna, Le Va senior manager for disability and public health, and Sara-Jane Elika, trustee of Foundation North, shared that the partnership will launch a dedicated pool of funding to support innovative, community-led initiatives for Pacific peoples with disabilities and their families. This partnership marks a powerful step forward in resourcing grassroots solutions led by Pasifika people with disabilities.

The information available on or through this newsletter does not represent Ministry of Health policy. It is intended to provide general information to the health sector and the public, and is not intended to address specific circumstances of any particular individual or entity.