Affiliations: Muru Marri Indigenous Health Unit, Faculty of
Medicine, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New
South Wales, NSW, Australia | Statistics New Zealand, Tatauranga Aotearoa,
Christchurch, New Zealand
Note: [] Corresponding author: John Waldon, Muru Marri Indigenous Health
Unit, Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health and Community Medicine,
University of New South Wales, NSW, 2052, Australia. E-mail: j.a.waldon@unsw.edu.au
Abstract: The expectation of indigenous mortality and survival has changed
from "smoothing the pillow for the dying native" and now the challenge for
New Zealand's official statistics agencies is to improve the quality of data on
indigenous birth, morbidity and death data that has resonance with indigenous
New Zealanders. Self-identified ethnicity has replaced the race-based
classification system that had its roots in skin colour and a cultural divide
in vogue in the 19th century. Understanding today's challenges to accurate
ethnicity coding will change the way we understand indigenous morbidity and
life expectancy as we address health issues beyond skin colour. In this paper,
an indigenous perspective on meaningful ethnicity coding considers factors
associated with avoidable cancer mortality for indigenous people to illustrate
how understanding indigenous health and demography can also benefit from
multi-disciplinary approaches made possible by international collaboration.
Keywords: Life expectancy, cancer, indigenous, Māori, hepatitis B
