Talofa lava, Kia orana, Malo e lelei, Fakalofa atu, warm Pacific greetings
NZ’s Pacific peoples bear a heavy burden of tobacco harm, and uptake of smoking among Pacific adolescents remains higher than among non-Māori/non-Pacific adolescents. The Government has signalled an intention to eliminate ethnic smoking disparities and put a renewed focus on smoking prevention in its consultation document about the Smokefree2025 Action Plan.
To inform smoking prevention initiatives, ASPIRE researchers undertook research to better understand the risk factors for smoking in NZ’s biggest Pacific ethncities using data from the ASH Year 10 Snapshot survey. Most health studies group Pacific people’s together, but (because of the large sample size of the ASH survey) we were able to analyse results for Samoan, Cook Island Māori, Tongan and Niuean adolescents separately. These findings, together with the latest trend data from the ASH survey, are presented in an accessible report jointly published by ASPIRE2025 and ASH.