Vishal Rishi, director of The Asian Network Incorporated (left), stands alongside Robert Scragg, one of the authors of Asian Health in Aotearoa. Photo: RNZ / Liu Chen
A landmark health report unveiled Tuesday shows that obesity in New Zealand's Asian population has doubled over the past 20 years.
Commissioned by community health provider The Asian Network Incorporated, Asian Health in Aotearoa 2024 is the first analysis of New Zealand Health Survey data for the Asian community in almost two decades.
The report showed encouraging findings, including lower smoking rates and reduced alcohol and substance consumption.
However, the report also flagged several worrying trends, including higher obesity rates, inadequate nutrition, lower levels of physical activity, lower rates of primary care enrolment and higher rates of discrimination.
Vishal Rishi, director of The Asian Network Incorporated (TANI), said his organisation had encountered disparities in the health sector for the country's Asian population since being founded more than 20 years ago.
"When we [told] the story from a community perspective without backing [it] up with reliable data, no one would listen to us," Rishi said.
"That is why we really wanted to derive the data from the New Zealand Health Survey about Asian respondents, and then show it to the decision makers."
The report showed that 26 percent of Asian adults in New Zealand lived with obesity in 2002-03. By 2019-21, this figure had increased to 53 percent.
Asian adults, along with Māori and Pasifika adults, were less physically active than other groups, the report said.
Asian, Māori and Pasifika children and adults were also less likely to eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables each day, it said.
The proportion of Asian respondents consuming fast food more than once per week had increased since 2006-07, the report said.
Robert Scragg, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Auckland and one of the report's authors, said the high obesity rate was concerning.
"Obesity levels are showing up as high rates of diabetes, high rates of hypertension, high rates of cholesterol levels," Scragg said. "If the trends in obesity continue, then clearly the rates of these diseases will also continue to rise."
Scragg said the health conditions were affecting the individuals battling them as well as taking a toll on the country's health budget.
"That's why we have to ... do something now to try and get on top of this and reverse the current trends because it's going to cost us big bucks in the future if we don't do something now," he said.
Scragg called for more in-depth research to investigate the reasons behind the change in behaviour for Asian residents in terms of diet and physical activity.
The report showed that Asian adults were less likely to be registered with a primary health practitioner and less likely to visit a hospital when unwell.
European and Asian households typically earned more than Māori and Pasifika households, the report showed.
But while Asian households made proportionally higher tax contributions than other groups, Scragg said they received less in terms of government spending on healthcare and welfare benefits.
"I think the Asian community can well start asking: What are you going to do about it? Because, you know, currently we're subsidizing the rest of the New Zealand population," Scragg said.
Zhengqiang Wu, senior research fellow at the University of Auckland and lead author of the report Photo: Supplied
Zhenqiang Wu, senior research fellow at the University of Auckland and lead author of the report, said Asian individuals had unique health-related challenges.
"I think the current service provided by the health system has a gap between the health status of [the] Asian community and the service provided by Health New Zealand," Wu said.
Data from the 2023 census showed that more than 17 percent of New Zealanders identified as Asian, with earlier Stats NZ forecasts projecting the Asian population to make up 26 percent of the country's total population by 2043.
"When you see the numbers, you can definitely realize that Asian health in New Zealand will become increasingly important over time," Wu said.
Wu said more detailed research into different Asian groups was needed.
"Asian are usually treated as one single homogeneous group in research in New Zealand, but we all know they're very diverse in terms of their origin, lifestyle, religions and many other factors," he said. "So that means ... each Asian subgroup has their own health status and health issues."
Kelly Feng, chief executive at Asian Family Services Photo: RNZ / Yiting Lin
Kelly Feng, chief executive at Asian Family Services, said the report was a useful reference point in terms of Asian health data.
"The (Asian) population has been growing really fast ... and the gap of the services and the policy levels and survey and are not really catching up, so those problem really need to be addressed," Feng said.
Rishi said data from the report represented just the tip of the iceberg, calling for dedicated resourcing and a national Asian health strategy to be created with some investment to close the gaps at a grassroots level.
The New Zealand Health Survey, carried out under the direction of the Ministry of Health, collects information on the health and wellbeing of the people in New Zealand.
It first began in 1992 and became an annual survey in 2011. The first survey to collect data specific to the country's Asian population was conducted in 2002-03.