7 Jun 2013

Overcrowding 'missing link' on hospitalisations

10:05 pm on 7 June 2013

Health researchers have found that overcrowded housing partly explains why so many Maori and Pacific children end up in hospital.

Researchers from the University of Otago reviewed 10,000 published papers from around the world on household overcrowding and infectious diseases.

They found overcrowding is a direct cause of one in 10 New Zealand hospitalisations for serious illnesses such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and meningococcal disease.

But the review found large ethnic inequalities, with overcrowding causing 5% of hospital admissions for the diseases among European or Pakeha children, but 25% of admissions for the illnesses in Pacific children.

Study author Professor Michael Baker says the evidence is the missing link explaining the high rates of hospitalisation among Maori and Pacific people.

Community groups say house overcrowding is a growing crisis which New Zealand is not yet taking seriously.

David Zussman, the executive of Auckland's Monte Cecilia housing trust says the Otago report backs up his trust's everyday experiences. He says they are seeing families living in overcrowded houses, boarding houses, caravan parks and their cars.

"These are families that are really stressed for all sorts of reasons. So they're going to be more vulnerable to these kind of diseases and infections in any case. Plus you've got all the health issues of sharing bathrooms, dampness, a transient lifestyle."

Mr Zussman says overcrowding has reached a crisis, but the responses from Government and the community are not urgent enough, nor of sufficient scale.

The Ministry of Health says a public service target to reduce rheumatic fever hospitalisations by two-thirds is keeping over-crowding front of mind for every agency.