Mobilising Pacific people for health: insights from a hepatitis B screening programme in Auckland, New Zealand.

This paper describes the recruitment and participation of Pacific people in a large hepatitis B screening programme undertaken in Auckland, New Zealand between April 2000 and December 2002. Thirty three percent (32,700) of the adult Pacific population was screened, with coverage highest among the Tongan community (50%) largely though the efforts of two active ethnic specific Pacific and non-Pacific providers using combinations of language-targeted promotion, outreach visits and opportunistic recruitment at general practice visits. Important differences were found in recruitment methods and patterns between Pacific populations and for different age groups. These findings suggest that funders, planners and providers of health programmes need to respond to the diversity within Pacific communities, and understand the importance of ethnic-specific providers when mobilising large numbers of people for population health interventions.