Regional Profiles

Safekids Aotearoa is New Zealand's child unintentional injury prevention service and a service of Starship Children’s Health. Our aim is to reduce the incidence and severity of unintentional traumatic injuries to children in Aotearoa aged 0-14 years. We seek to support children to enjoy a life free from the adverse effects of these types of unintentional injuries.

At a national level, between 2013 and 2017, there were 36,513 unintentional injuries leading to hospital admissions for children aged between 0-14 years. Most, if not all, could have been prevented.

Safekids acknowledges the key role DHBs play in preventing unintentional child injuries within regions. As we have done in the past, we are publishing the most current child injury statistics by DHB area. These are being published on our website in a form we hope will be widely utilised and accessed by injury stakeholders and workers in the area.

Tamariki Māori (tamariki) in New Zealand are three times more likely to die from avoidable injuries at home than European children. They are twice as likely to be hospitalised for these types of injuries. Not only are inequities like these a bad thing in themselves, they're inconsistent with our responsibilities under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The commitments made in it require the health system to achieve equitable health outcomes for tamariki and in doing so, embrace Māori cultural concepts, values and practices.

Indigenous knowledge is an underutilised resource, all too often excluded from injury prevention. We believe traditional Māori intelligence (mōhiotanga), māramatanga (enlightenment), as well as mātauranga (wisdom) provide unique insights and the opportunity to create innovative solutions that are culturally safe and relevant to overcome the persistent child injury inequities that exist for tamariki. Increasingly both are informing the national approach to child injury prevention,

As we prioritise the challenge of addressing these inequities, we will increasingly be drawing upon local networks in your rohe to localize and deepen the authenticity and impact of our work. We invite you to use Safekid’s injury prevention data, mōhiotanga, māramatanga and māutaranga Māori and share it whenever and wherever you have the opportunity. (Please see more on our Puna mātauranga page)

Please download the data to get a full picture of unintentional child injury at a regional level in New Zealand.

DHB Profiles (PDFs)

Below are the 20 DHB profiles with an additional All DHBs profile in PDF format. Please feel free to download these below, and if you have any questions, please email us at safekidsaotearoa@adhb.govt.nz