{"id":49720,"date":"2021-03-01T18:41:58","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T17:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=49720"},"modified":"2021-03-05T12:16:47","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T11:16:47","slug":"transformational-change-in-new-zealand-means-putting-communities-at-the-heart-of-decision-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/03\/01\/transformational-change-in-new-zealand-means-putting-communities-at-the-heart-of-decision-making\/","title":{"rendered":"Transformational change in New Zealand means putting communities at the heart of decision making"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"standfirst\">If New Zealand wants to improve health and wellbeing for all, it needs to embrace systemic change in how local communities are valued, writes <strong>Anna Matheson<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-49722\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/03\/Anna-profile-pic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"164\" height=\"171\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/03\/Anna-profile-pic.jpg 1559w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/03\/Anna-profile-pic-287x300.jpg 287w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/03\/Anna-profile-pic-978x1024.jpg 978w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/03\/Anna-profile-pic-768x804.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/03\/Anna-profile-pic-1467x1536.jpg 1467w, https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2021\/03\/Anna-profile-pic-640x670.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 164px) 100vw, 164px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In New Zealand we are at a tipping point. We\u2019ve learnt key lessons from the pandemic about effective policy action, trust in government, and inequality; reform to our health sector is on the cusp of implementation; and we have a government with a wellbeing agenda. With the right kind of system change, we could reverse inequality and improve health and wellbeing for all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Realising this moment of potential, however, is only possible if Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand\u2019s prime minister, and her government are clear about what transformational change really entails. For health and wellbeing, it means putting communities at the centre of our systems and at the heart of decision making.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Health outcomes are seeded in the places we are born, live, work, play, and age<\/span><b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2014<\/span><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">where belonging, norms, culture, resources, environment, and agency are experienced. It is these living conditions (often defined by local geographic area) that shape the inequitable spread of both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Decades of international evidence tells us this.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In New Zealand we have known since the 1970s of the health inequalities that exist by ethnic group, and of a socioeconomic gradient in health outcomes that belies our egalitarian identity. Yet despite successive governments pledging to change this, coupled with investment over decades, <a href=\"https:\/\/systemreview.health.govt.nz\/final-report\/download-the-final-report\/\">recent reviews<\/a> of the <a href=\"https:\/\/waitangitribunal.govt.nz\/news\/report-on-stage-one-of-health-services-and-outcomes-released\/\">health sector<\/a> have <a href=\"https:\/\/mentalhealth.inquiry.govt.nz\/inquiry-report\/he-ara-oranga\/\">found we have failed<\/a> to make <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hqsc.govt.nz\/our-programmes\/health-quality-evaluation\/publications-and-resources\/publication\/3721\/\">much progress<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. A main culprit has been the inability to effectively deliver\u2014or, in the case of M\u0101ori (New Zealand\u2019s Indigenous people), return\u2014resources and the power to act to communities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over 20 years I have seen how policies disregard local communities and the sophisticated systems and relationships that exist at the local level. Policy interventions frequently fail to treat communities as if they have pre-existing contexts. The top-end structural reform that has characterised our health system has meant policy organisations are less stable over time than communities, resulting in relationships and priorities being short term and changeable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have seen local organisations pitted against each other through competitive and siloed investment strategies, undermining their own health and wellbeing goals. And I\u2019ve seen community voices that are not equal in most avenues of decision making\u2014formally, through levels of government and, informally, through familial or professional networks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">New Zealand\u2019s national response to the pandemic has been rightfully lauded, but it also revealed the low value we place on the security of many local communities. During our circuit breaking \u201cgo hard, go early\u201d lockdown in late March 2020, we saw how immediately vulnerable people were. Income was lost, housing became precarious, education more difficult to prioritise, food harder to come by, mental health deteriorated, and access to healthcare became more difficult. <a href=\"https:\/\/cffc-assets-prod.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com\/public\/Uploads\/Research-2020%2B\/COVID-19\/CFFC-Impact-of-COVID-19-on-Financial-Wellbeing-Oct-2020.pdf\">Surveys in April and October 2020<\/a> on the financial impact of lockdown found a lack of resilience among many communities that compounded existing socioeconomic hardship<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Although we have so far avoided the worst of economic scenarios, existing inequalities are unquestionably shaping who is affected and how.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have also, however, seen a glimmer of how the public sector could be more effective in achieving intended social goals. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.health.govt.nz\/publication\/updated-covid-19-maori-response-action-plan\">Extra resources were provided<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.beehive.govt.nz\/release\/government-helps-pacific-communities-fight-covid\">M\u0101ori and Pacific communities<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beehive.govt.nz\/release\/government-helps-pacific-communities-fight-covid\">,<\/a> equity focused research projects were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrc.govt.nz\/news-and-events\/new-studies-put-health-equity-centre-covid-19-pandemic-response\">urgently funded<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, money was found to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newshub.co.nz\/home\/politics\/2021\/02\/covid-19-treasury-forecasts-govt-s-net-debt-to-be-60b-lower-than-predicted.html\">increase benefits and support lost incomes<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and many of our country\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/may\/27\/new-zealand-sheltered-its-homeless-during-covid-19-but-can-it-last\">homeless people were housed<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the performance of these acts, relationships between national and local government, and communities, improved. Essential local services kept running and emergency food, medicines, and support were provided. Local organisations also played a crucial role communicating and translating national messages about the pandemic response within communities. The public sector suddenly found haste and that it could organise \u201cwhole of government\u201d action by tending to cross-sector and community relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In New Zealand we now have an opportunity to keep momentum going and reshape the systems that underlie the spread of health and disease. But whether we can shake off our excessive reliance on top-end organisations and goals in the implementation of our health system reforms and national wellbeing targets will be key.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The government campaigned on being transformational in pursuit of improved health, wellbeing, and equity. But achieving the transformation they say they want will mean a shift away from valuing distant technocratic and commercial goals over local needs. Instead, greater reciprocity with communities in policy funding, contracting, and delivery models should be the norm. Caring and service workforces should be valued for their worth. It was eye opening to observe how many of those who became essential during lockdown\u2014from nurses to supermarket workers\u2014exist on low and insecure incomes. And it is telling that <a href=\"https:\/\/thespinoff.co.nz\/business\/05-08-2020\/11000-new-zealanders-have-lost-their-jobs-and-10000-of-them-were-women\/\">10 000 of the 11 000 New Zealanders who lost their jobs during lockdown were women<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We should also strengthen local communities&#8217; ability to act through relational methods that embed power and resilience within community systems and recognise the interconnected nature of health, <a href=\"https:\/\/thespinoff.co.nz\/partner\/te-punaha-matatini\/27-08-2020\/collective-impact-shining-the-light-on-community-post-covid-19\/\">such as collective impact<\/a> and local wealth building<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. And we should better distribute and join up leadership and governance for wellbeing, ensuring that community organisations, local councils, and local iwi (M\u0101ori tribes) can influence and respond as equal partners to other decision makers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Looking to the pandemic\u2019s end, talk of transformation has become commonplace in New Zealand. But this has not yet been accompanied by an understanding of the need for a complete shift in our economic, social, and health systems to reorient around the needs of people and their living conditions. Donella Meadows, an influential systems thinker, argued that the most effective method of system change was a paradigm shift, a change in the deep purposes of a system. The pandemic has revealed the vast extent to which inequality is a system purpose that drives health, social, and environmental outcomes. This means that we will never get the transformation we want without systemic change in the value placed on local communities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><em><strong>Anna Matheson<\/strong> is a senior lecturer in public health and health policy at Te Herenga Waka (Victoria University of Wellington), Aotearoa (New Zealand). Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrAMatheson\">@DrAMatheson<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Competing interests:<\/strong> none declared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If New Zealand wants to improve health and wellbeing for all, it needs to embrace systemic change in how local communities are valued, writes Anna Matheson [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2021\/03\/01\/transformational-change-in-new-zealand-means-putting-communities-at-the-heart-of-decision-making\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":49721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-health"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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