title: The determinants of GP visits in New Zealand

authors: Cumming, Jacqueline

subjects: General practitioner

abstract: Objective: To identify the characteristics of New Zealanders who utilised primary healthcare services prior to the implementation of the New Zealand Primary Healthcare Strategy (PHCS).
Methods: This paper uses data from the 1996/97 and 2002/03 waves of the nationally representative New Zealand Health Survey to examine the relationship between individual, household and community characteristics and the utilisation of healthcare services by New Zealanders. Multivariate regression models are used to examine the correlation between particular characteristics and whether an individual visited a GP in the previous 12 months, the number of visits made to a GP in the previous 12 months, whether they reported needing to see a GP in the previous 12 months, but failed to do so, and whether they visited a secondary practitioner in the previous 12 months.
Results: Gender, age, and ethnicity are all found to be significantly related to healthcare utilisation, even when controlling for a fairly comprehensive set of characteristics. On the other hand, education, marital status, household composition, household income and community deprivation are found to be unrelated to healthcare utilisation. A strong relationship is found between employment status, health status and healthcare utilisation.
Conclusions and implications: We do not find any evidence of a relationship between socioeconomic status and healthcare utilisation after controlling for other measures of need. This and other findings suggest that the government subsidies in place prior to the implementation of the 2001 Primary Healthcare Strategy helped to ensure that user charges did not limit service utilisation in New Zealand for groups with lower socioeconomic status.

text: The determinants of GP visits in New Zealand Objective: To identify the characteristics of New Zealanders who utilised primary healthcare services prior to the implementation of the New Zealand Primary Healthcare Strategy (PHCS).
Methods: This paper uses data from the 1996/97 and 2002/03 waves of the nationally representative New Zealand Health Survey to examine the relationship between individual, household and community characteristics and the utilisation of healthcare services by New Zealanders. Multivariate regression models are used to examine the correlation between particular characteristics and whether an individual visited a GP in the previous 12 months, the number of visits made to a GP in the previous 12 months, whether they reported needing to see a GP in the previous 12 months, but failed to do so, and whether they visited a secondary practitioner in the previous 12 months.
Results: Gender, age, and ethnicity are all found to be significantly related to healthcare utilisation, even when controlling for a fairly comprehensive set of characteristics. On the other hand, education, marital status, household composition, household income and community deprivation are found to be unrelated to healthcare utilisation. A strong relationship is found between employment status, health status and healthcare utilisation.
Conclusions and implications: We do not find any evidence of a relationship between socioeconomic status and healthcare utilisation after controlling for other measures of need. This and other findings suggest that the government subsidies in place prior to the implementation of the 2001 Primary Healthcare Strategy helped to ensure that user charges did not limit service utilisation in New Zealand for groups with lower socioeconomic status.

year: 2010

title: Editorial

authors: Locke, Terry

subjects: curriculum

abstract: The scrutiny of any educational system inevitably raises issues about constructions of worthwhile knowledge (content) and how the learning of knowledge so-deemed should be managed (pedagogy). Issues of national curriculum reform are discussed by a number of writers in this issue. In providing an overview of the Australian situation, Wayne Sawyer raises issues related to the uneasy tension between increasingly critical English curriculum formulations and narrowly defined literacy testing regimes. Writing of the situation in England, Richard Andrews details ways in which curricular reform still operates within a conservative, target-setting and assessment driven model. Terry Locke makes similar points about the New Zealand situation, when he discusses ways in which assessment reforms, especially when related to high-stakes qualifications reforms, construct their own de facto curriculums. The article on the South African situation, by Hilary Janks and Jeanne Prinsloo, is a reminder of ways in which issues of power (and disempowerment) are implicated in curricular constructions.

text: Editorial The scrutiny of any educational system inevitably raises issues about constructions of worthwhile knowledge (content) and how the learning of knowledge so-deemed should be managed (pedagogy). Issues of national curriculum reform are discussed by a number of writers in this issue. In providing an overview of the Australian situation, Wayne Sawyer raises issues related to the uneasy tension between increasingly critical English curriculum formulations and narrowly defined literacy testing regimes. Writing of the situation in England, Richard Andrews details ways in which curricular reform still operates within a conservative, target-setting and assessment driven model. Terry Locke makes similar points about the New Zealand situation, when he discusses ways in which assessment reforms, especially when related to high-stakes qualifications reforms, construct their own de facto curriculums. The article on the South African situation, by Hilary Janks and Jeanne Prinsloo, is a reminder of ways in which issues of power (and disempowerment) are implicated in curricular constructions.

year: 2002

title: Formulaic Discourse Patterning in Mōteatea

authors: Roa, Te Raukura o Te Rangimarie

subjects: mōteatea

abstract: Oral formulaic composition, which involves the use of communally owned formulae of various kinds, is a common feature of verbal arts produced in many different languages. It is particularly associated with pre-literate cultures and tends to be gradually replaced by more individualistic verbal art forms when societies become literate. There are very few publications in which the analysis of mōteatea (Māori laments) is linked explicitly to oral formulaic theory. Nevertheless, there is, I believe, sufficient evidence in published sources to indicate that traditional mōteatea (defined here as mōteatea that are not fundamentally influenced by European cultural beliefs and practices) exhibit evidence of regularly recurring, conventional themes (such as death, separation, loss and travel) and motifs (such as the setting sun, the presence of rain or mist and sleeplessness).  There is, however, considerably less evidence that traditional mōteatea make extensive use of verbal formulae, that is, of the same or very similar groups of words derived from a common store of poetic resources. Although there are references in the literature to the conventionalized use of language in mōteatea, and although it has been claimed that there are at least some commonly recurring verbal expressions, this is by no means evidence of reliance on a common stock of verbal formulae. Indeed, no attempt has hitherto been made to define precisely what might be meant by the term 'oral formula' in the context of compositions in te reo Māori, something that is clearly required in view, in particular, of the fact that the phrasal structure of the language means that certain groupings (e.g. i te X; ki te X) are very likely to occur in certain contexts irrespective of genre. Furthermore, in the literature on oral formulaic composition, oral formulae are generally linked to particular metrical conditions and there is, it is argued here, no convincing empirically-based evidence that mōteatea conform to any common metrical structure or structures (see Chapters 2 and 4).

In the context of a critical review of selected literature on oral formulaic theory (Chapter 2) and mōteatea (Chapter 3), this thesis sets out to test the hypothesis that traditional mōteatea were composed, in whole or in large part, from a common stock of oral formulae. The conclusion, based on analysis of a selection of mōteatea included in Ngā mōteatea, a collection initially established by Sir Apirana Ngata, is that this hypothesis must be rejected (Chapter 4). However, a model derived from a review of selected literature on discourse structure (Chapter 5) was also applied to the analysis of a sample of these mōteatea (Chapter 6). On the basis of this analysis, it is concluded that they exhibit one of two very similar discourse prototypes, each of which involves a particular combination of discourse elements. What distinguishes the two prototypes is the fact that only one of them is characterized by the inclusion of hortatory sections in which the poet urges one or more of the protagonists to undergo one or more steps or stages required to achieve a particular outcome, such as entry into the spirit world or vengeance for death and/ or humiliation.

text: Formulaic Discourse Patterning in Mōteatea Oral formulaic composition, which involves the use of communally owned formulae of various kinds, is a common feature of verbal arts produced in many different languages. It is particularly associated with pre-literate cultures and tends to be gradually replaced by more individualistic verbal art forms when societies become literate. There are very few publications in which the analysis of mōteatea (Māori laments) is linked explicitly to oral formulaic theory. Nevertheless, there is, I believe, sufficient evidence in published sources to indicate that traditional mōteatea (defined here as mōteatea that are not fundamentally influenced by European cultural beliefs and practices) exhibit evidence of regularly recurring, conventional themes (such as death, separation, loss and travel) and motifs (such as the setting sun, the presence of rain or mist and sleeplessness).  There is, however, considerably less evidence that traditional mōteatea make extensive use of verbal formulae, that is, of the same or very similar groups of words derived from a common store of poetic resources. Although there are references in the literature to the conventionalized use of language in mōteatea, and although it has been claimed that there are at least some commonly recurring verbal expressions, this is by no means evidence of reliance on a common stock of verbal formulae. Indeed, no attempt has hitherto been made to define precisely what might be meant by the term 'oral formula' in the context of compositions in te reo Māori, something that is clearly required in view, in particular, of the fact that the phrasal structure of the language means that certain groupings (e.g. i te X; ki te X) are very likely to occur in certain contexts irrespective of genre. Furthermore, in the literature on oral formulaic composition, oral formulae are generally linked to particular metrical conditions and there is, it is argued here, no convincing empirically-based evidence that mōteatea conform to any common metrical structure or structures (see Chapters 2 and 4).

In the context of a critical review of selected literature on oral formulaic theory (Chapter 2) and mōteatea (Chapter 3), this thesis sets out to test the hypothesis that traditional mōteatea were composed, in whole or in large part, from a common stock of oral formulae. The conclusion, based on analysis of a selection of mōteatea included in Ngā mōteatea, a collection initially established by Sir Apirana Ngata, is that this hypothesis must be rejected (Chapter 4). However, a model derived from a review of selected literature on discourse structure (Chapter 5) was also applied to the analysis of a sample of these mōteatea (Chapter 6). On the basis of this analysis, it is concluded that they exhibit one of two very similar discourse prototypes, each of which involves a particular combination of discourse elements. What distinguishes the two prototypes is the fact that only one of them is characterized by the inclusion of hortatory sections in which the poet urges one or more of the protagonists to undergo one or more steps or stages required to achieve a particular outcome, such as entry into the spirit world or vengeance for death and/ or humiliation.

year: 2008