The primary catchment area for Christchurch Hospital has a population of just over 367,000 of whom just over 12,000 (3.3%) are Maori. The presentation of two unrelated Maori men with hypokalaemic periodic paralysis to the department of Neurology, Christchurch Hospital in 1996 prompted review of previous cases diagnosed locally. A case history is presented plus a summary of the recorded Christch...

In this issue, Sneyd and Cox of the New Zealand Cancer Registry (1) report a near doubling of malignant melanoma rates (2.3 per 100,000 to 4.3 per 100,000) over an 11-year period from 1996 to 2006 among persons of native Maori ethnicity (who comprise about 15% of the total New Zealand population), in light of only a 12% increase among New Zealand Europeans (30.9 per 100,000 to 34.6 per 100,000)...

This article introduces the SoDIS process to identify ethical and social risks from software development in the context of designing software for the New Zealand Maori culture. In reviewing the SoDIS analysis for this project, the tensions between two cultures are explored with emphasis on the (in)compatibility between a Maori worldview and the values embedded in the SoDIS process. The article ...

cardiovascular disease (cvd) is the driving force behind the discrepancy in life expectancy between indigenous and nonindigenous groups in many countries. preceding cvd many indigenous groups exhibit a cluster of cardiometabolic risk factors, including overweight-obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. in turn, modifiable lifestyle risk factors contribute to the developmen...

The late 19th-century emergence in New Zealand of the history-painting tradition relates to the European settler (Pakeha) culture’s artistic and literary quest for a national identity. By the 1880s the larger towns had established museums and art galleries intent on acquiring important “national” works, as well as art societies that promoted the achievements of local painters. Pakeha writers we...

We sought to identify the sex-specific cut-off in waist circumference which best identifies those with metabolic abnormalities consistent with the metabolic syndrome (MS) among Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand of Polynesian origin. In 3816 self-identified Maori (2742 women, 1344 men) a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test, fasting lipid, anthropometric and blood pressure measurements wer...

As “sustainability” has gathered more attention globally, many academics and bureaucrats have placed faith in the capacity of education to provide young people with the values to confront the problems of the 21 century. This thesis questions the underlying assumption that values can be propagated and sustained through communication alone in education. Following a Durkheimian approach to religio...