What is already known: Promotion of physical activity (PA) is essential for primary and secondary prevention of multiple health conditions across the life span. Multiple factors influence physical activity uptake in older people living in the general community. In the retirement village setting, opportunities for activity are present, potentially reducing some barriers to activity.What this study adds: Despite many opportunities to be active, many New Zealand retirement village residents are likely not meeting recommended activity levels. Several individual health and psychological factors were associated with activity, not all consistent with prior studies of community-dwelling older people. Retirement village structural factors and ownership models were associated with activity levels in residents. Clinicians should target individualised PA discussions to older adults with risk factors identified in this study such as female gender, fatigue and poor self-reported health.

What is already known: New Zealand’s rural hospitals do not fit a homogenous concept. There is no standardised description of each rural hospital’s catchment boundary and its population characteristics. What this study adds: Our study findings provide, for the first time for Aotearoa New Zealand, a standardised description of each rural hospital’s catchment boundary and the socio-demographic characteristics of the population living within this area. NZ’s rural hospitals serve very different communities.

What is already known: Maternal and child health provider, Whānau Āwhina Plunket, has noted inequities by deprivation level, location and ethnicity in its post-natal depression screening. What this study adds: Registered nurses working for Whānau Āwhina Plunket rated their confidence in using the postnatal depression screening tool highly; however, they did not have the same level of support for the efficacy of the tool cross-culturally. Nurses’ lack of confidence in the use of the PHQ-3 with ethnically diverse families may be negatively affecting their screening. Further work is required with Well Child Tamariki primary care services to ensure all whānau receive screening and treatment services, which consider cultural requirements as a priority.

What is already known: Enrolment in a general practice and uptake of screening services are lower among NZ Asians in comparison to other NZ ethnic groups. Lack of knowledge about healthcare systems is a barrier to accessing health care among migrant populations, both in New Zealand and overseas. What this study adds: Empirical data about web-based information regarding general practice services for Asian migrants in New Zealand, with a special focus on navigational health literacy. This study also provides information on barriers to understanding and navigating health care, as perceived by NZ Asians.

What is already known: Expert consensus-based explicit criteria have been developed internationally to identify potentially inappropriate medications that should be avoided or prescribed with caution for older adults due to their association with adverse outcomes. To date, no similar criteria have been published within the New Zealand healthcare setting. What this study adds: The NZ criteria are explicit criteria for older adults with polypharmacy, which is tailored to New Zealand healthcare’s unique pharmacopoeia, clinical practice, and prescribing patterns. Some potentially inappropriate medications identified in the NZ criteria were less commonly identified in internationally developed criteria.

What is already known: Aotearoa New Zealand has one of the highest prevalences of gout in the world. Pacific and Māori people are diagnosed with gout earlier and at much higher rates; they also experience more frequent gout flares, have the highest hospital admissions and hence poorer quality of life. However, although Pacific and Māori people experience the highest burden of gout, they are less likely to receive continuous allopurinol treatment compared to non-Pacific, non-Māori people with gout. What this study adds: This scoping review provides an updated stocktake of all interventions in Aotearoa New Zealand that aim to improve the uptake of allopurinol for gout treatment, and their evaluations, where available.

What is already known: Although many interventions have been tried, rheumatic fever remains a significant issue in Aotearoa New Zealand, particularly for Pacific and Māori populations. What this study adds: This scoping review identified a need for more community-led interventions, particularly by and for Pacific and Māori people, that undertake rigorous evaluation processes.

What is already known: The NZ Health reforms aim for more integration and a seamless transition between primary and secondary health services. GPwSIs overseas have been shown to provide suitable, efficient secondary care within the primary care setting. What this study adds: This study supports one of the goals of Health NZ reforms, through a programme that provides secondary level care within the primary setting at greater convenience and no disadvantage to patients. It shows how GPwSIs can function within the context of the New Zealand health system to help improve wait times and provide suitable specialty care, often without the need for specialist intervention.

What is already known: To access the current standard-of-care for chest pain assessment, patients in rural and remote areas have historically had to travel large distances to hospital emergency departments. The rural accelerated chest pain pathway that incorporates point-of-care troponin allows assessment in rural general practice and patients assessed as low-risk can remain in their communities. The comparative costs of these two assessment approaches are unknown. What this study adds: There are potential savings to both the patient and the health system when assessment for low-risk chest pain is completed in rural general practice using the rural accelerated chest pain pathway.

What is already known: Long-term immersion in rural communities during healthcare training can increase intentions to work in rural communities. It is unknown whether short rural placements influence healthcare graduate career trajectories. What this study adds: Graduates who participated in a 5-week rural interprofessional education programme were not more likely to work in rural locations at 3 years’ post-registration than those who did not attend, but considered the programme had increased their interest and abilities to work with Māori and people from rural locations.

What is already known: The HealthPathways platform is widely used by general practice and junior doctors. There was no similar clinical guidance repository for allied health in Canterbury. What this study adds: Allied Healthways has been developed as part of the HealthPathways platform in Canterbury, and has demonstrated that clinical pathways are useful for patient care, change management, and education for allied health professionals.