Children's environmental health indicators

Household crowding

• About one in seven children aged 0-14 years (15.9%) lived in crowded houses in 2013.

• In 2012/13, 5.0% of children aged 0-14 years were exposed to second-hand smoke in their home. This is about 45,000 children.
• Fewer children were exposed to second-hand smoke in their home in 2012/13 (5.0%) than in 2006/07 (9.6%). 

• In 2018, 9.4% of mothers who gave birth were smoking at two weeks after birth. This had decreased from 113.7% in 2009.
• Māori mothers continue to have the highest smoking rates than any other ethnicity between 2009 and 2018. However, smoking rates among Māori mothers have declined from 32.4% in 2009 to 25.0% in 2018.

• In 2018, there were 7,182 asthma-related hospitalisations (including wheeze) among children
  aged 0–14 years in New Zealand.
• The age-standardised rate for asthma hospitalisations increased from 2002 (473 per 100,000) to 2018 (779 per 100,000).   
• In 2018/19, about 110,000 children aged 2–14 years had asthma and were taking medication for it. The asthma rate had decreased from 16.6% in 2015/16 to 13.1% in 2018/19. Rates of medicated asthma were higher among boys, and Māori and Pacific children.

• In 2016 there were over 9000 hospitalisations for lower respiratory tract infections in children aged 0-4 years.
• The rate has increased from 2815 per 100,000 in 2001, to 3050 per 100,000 in 2016. 

• In 2016, 42 children aged under one year old died from SUDI, a rate of 0.7 per 1,000 live births. Since 2000, the SUDI rate has decreased considerably, although it has increased slightly from 2012 to 2014
• In 2012–16, SUDI rates were higher among Māori and Pacific babies, and among babies living in the most deprived areas. 

• In 2018, there were 46 notifications (out of 120) of meningococcal disease in children aged 0–14 years. 
• The rate of meningococcal notifications has doubled since 2014.
• Meningococcal Group B continues to be the most dominant strain in children.
• The highest notification rates were in infants, Māori children, Pacific children, and children living in the most deprived areas.  

Active transport to and from school

• In 2019/20, less than half (42.4%) of children aged 5-14 years usually used active transport (such as walking and cycling) to get to and from school. 
• There has been no significant change in the use of active transport among 5-14-year-olds in over 10 years, from 2006/07 to 2019/20.

• In 2019/20, 1.6% of children aged 0-14 years had a medical problem but did not visit a GP due to a lack of transport, in the last 12 months. This is about 15,000 children.
• There has been no significant change in the percentage of children with unmet need for a GP due to a lack of transport between 2011/12(3.0%) and 2019/20.

• In 2016, 12 children aged 0-14 years died from traffic injury, the majority as vehicle occupants (8 deaths).
• The mortality rate for traffic injuries for children remained mostly unchanged between 2010 and 2016.
• In 2019, there were 269 hospitalisations for traffic injuries for children, most of which were for vehicle occupant injuries (56.5%) or pedestrian injuries (25.3%). 
• The overall traffic injury hospitalisation rate for children aged 0-14 years has been stable from 2012 onwards.
• Māori children had traffic injury mortality rates which were three times higher than those of children of other ethnicities and represented 52% of all traffic-related deaths between 2007–16.