Determinants of differences in mortality between New Zealand Maoris and non-Maoris aged 15-64.

Maori mortality is compared with that of other New Zealanders aged 15-64 in the period 1974 to 1978. For males, it is estimated that approximately 20% of the Maori excess in mortality is associated with marked ethnic differences in socio-economic status. Of the remaining excess, an estimated 15% is linked with cigarette smoking, 10% with alcohol consumption (excluding accidental cause of deaths), 5% with obesity and 17% was due to accidents. However 36% of the non-social class related excess involved rheumatic and hypertensive heart disease, nephritis, bronchiectasis, diabetes and tuberculosis which were all associated with a Maori mortality five or more times that for non-Maoris. It is recommended that resources should be allocated so that Maori people can be employed to maintain contact with Maori patients with these diseases in order to improve health services utilisation and compliance with therapy. While it was not possible to determine socio-economic status for females from national mortality data, other findings were similar to those found for males except that mortality from coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease also contributed to the Maori excess.