267.5
Ethnic Differences in Premature Mortality over Three Decades – the Intersection Between Indigeneity, Social Class and Preventability
Despite focussed efforts to improve Maori health, the inequality between Maori and non-Maori in premature mortality appears to be increasing, even when social class differences are taken into account. The persistently higher Maori rate of potentially preventable deaths indicates that the health sector is still not meeting the serious health needs of many Maori. It also appears that there is increasing social stratification developing within the Maori population such that the social class differences in mortality within Maori are now larger than the inter-ethnic differences between Maori and non-Maori. We present several reasons why decades of indigenous development have not overcome ethnic differences in a fundamental marker of population health such as premature mortality but have resulted in increased inequality within the indigenous population.