Child disability health data available for the first time

23 February 2024

Data from the latest New Zealand Health Survey from the Ministry of Health includes child disability statistics for the first time.

The survey results from Ministry of Health external URL were released in December 2023.The key results are explained below, but if you want to explore the data in more detail we recommend visiting the Ministry of Health website external URL .

Summary of results

Overall, compared to non-disabled adults and children, disabled adults and children were more likely to have:

Mental health: Disabled children are almost five times as likely to have consulted with a psychologist, counsellor, or psychotherapist about mental health in the last 12 months as non-disabled children (12% vs 3%).
Emotional, behavioural and social problems are more frequent among disabled children. Disabled children are almost 10 times as likely to experience emotional and/or behavioural problems as non-disabled children (39% vs 4%), and are over three times as likely to experience peer problems as non-disabled children (33% vs 10%).
Parenting: Parents of disabled children are 17 times as likely to report their child is always or usually hard to care for (19% vs 1%), and 15 times as likely to report not coping well or not coping very well at all (13% vs 1%) as parents of non-disabled children.
Food insecurity: Disabled children are almost three times as likely to experience food running out often (11% vs 4%), and more than twice as likely to use food grants often or sometimes as non-disabled children.

Overall health: Disabled adults were less likely to report being in good, very good, or excellent health compared to non-disabled adults (57% vs 89%). Disabled adults are almost 11 times as likely to rate their overall health as poor (17% vs 2%), and disabled children are almost seven times as likely to have overall poor or fair health (14% vs 2%) as their non-disabled counterparts.
Unmet need for professional mental health help and addiction services: Disabled adults are almost four times as likely to report unmet need (20% vs 7% non-disabled adults), while disabled children are almost 11 times as likely to have this unmet need (31% vs 3% non-disabled children).
Consultation for mental health: Disabled adults are more than twice as likely as non-disabled adults to have consulted with their GP or nurse for mental health (25% vs 12%), and disabled children over six times as likely as non-disabled children (27% vs 5%). Similarly, disabled adults are twice as likely to have consulted with family, whānau and/or friends for mental health (18% vs 12%) and disabled children over five times as likely (31% vs 6%) as their non-disabled counterparts.

Low life satisfaction: Disabled adults are more than five times as likely to report low ratings of life satisfaction as non-disabled adults (13% vs 3%).
Psychological distress: Disabled adults are more than four times as likely to report high or very high levels of psychological distress in the last four weeks as non-disabled adults (36% distress vs 10% of non-disabled adults). Overall, the percentage of adults with high or very high levels of psychological distress has remained higher than it was before COVID-19.
Being lonely: Disabled adults are almost five times as likely to report being lonely most or all of the time in the last four weeks as non-disabled adults (15% vs 3%).
Vaping: disabled adults are twice as likely as non-disabled adults to vape on a daily basis (14% vs 9%)
Unmet health needs: disabled adults were more than twice as likely to report unmet need in terms of GP visits due to cost (21% vs 12%), almost five times as likely to report unmet need for GP visits due to owing money (4% vs 1%), and more than five times as likely to report unmet need for GP visits due to transport (8% vs 2%) as non-disabled adults. Disabled adults were almost three times as likely to report unmet need in terms of unfilled prescriptions as non-disabled adults (8% vs 4%).