During 2009, as economic conditions continued to deteriorate, a Working Group made up of health professionals from a range of organisations[1] formed, with a view to developing an indicator set to monitor the impact of the economic downturn on child wellbeing. The rationale was the concern that, as the downturn progressed and more families became reliant on Government assistance (e.g. unemployment benefits), that some of the adaptations that families might make in response to constrained financial resources (e.g. house downsizing / increasing the number of occupants to meet rent payments, deferring heating costs to pay for groceries) might result in unintended health consequences for children (e.g. increases in infectious and respiratory diseases, exposure to family conflict).

It was thus hoped that if any deterioration in child wellbeing did occur, that i could be identified early, so that proactive policy responses could be put in place in a timely manner.

The indicator set developed by the Working group, the New Zealand Children’s Social Health Monitor (NZCSHM), was launched for the first time in November 2009, and has been updated annually since then (see Appendix 6 for an overview of the methodology used). It currently comprises five Economic and four Health and Wellbeing Indicators. (From the introduction). This is the 2011 update released in August 2011. Record #6249