Rina Moore. (Geoffrey C. Wood Studio, Nelson). THE STATE OF MAORI HEALTH by RINA MOORE M.B., Ch.B. This paper was presented by Dr Moore in the South Island Conference of Young Maori Leaders held at Christchurch, 19th–21st August, 1960. A discussion of Maori Health must cover a very wide ground indeed; it entails a discussion of the physical health of the people, and the mental health of the people. In a sense, health is the physical and mental reaction to our environment, and in order to discuss health, we must also discuss certain aspects which will come up in the agenda laid down for this conference. We have to discuss housing and over-population because these are the fundamental factors behind Maori health, or perhaps we should call it ill-health, today.

PHYSICAL HEALTH The natural increase rate of the Maori is one of the highest in the world. The European natural increase rate in 1958 was 12.6 per thousand while the Maori was 37.57 per thousand. These are rather amazing figures, when one realises that at the turn of the century, the Maori was doomed to extinction. Behind these figures, how-over, there lies a rather tragic story. of a short expectation of life, a low standard of health, and in most age groups an incredibly high death-rate as compared with similar age groups among Europeans. The figures we have today of a high birth-rate, a high death-rate, despite the high natural increases of population, tell only of a tremendous wastage of effort on the part of the Maori people, in the form of grief, loss of economic potential when people are ill, and a waste of money and effort on children who do not live long enough to fulfill their proper destiny in the community. The Maori today has an expectation of life of only 54 years, as compared with the 68 years for the European—a difference of 14 years. This figure was for 1950–52 and there is a slight improvement in the expectation of life for both races, but the relative differences remain the same. You can see what is happening to us when we lose people who are our leaders at the age of 54. It means that every Maori child born at a time when we would want to stimulate him in an all-out effort to improve his economic and educational standards, has fourteen years less life in which to pack all its usefulness, as compared with the European.