New research has painted a bleak picture for rural communities, revealing they have a higher death rate than urban dwellers.
It particularly applies to those aged under 60.
University of Otago professor Garry Nixon told Newshub it's grim for some causes of death.
"For some of those causes of death, it looks like the rural mortality rate is close to twice what it is - what the urban rate is."
Research from 2014 to 2018 looked into the causes of 160,000 deaths, categorising them into five groups - all-cause mortality, amenable, cardiovascular, cancer and injury.
"It's pretty obvious that injury-related deaths are a lot higher in rural areas," said Nixon.
And amenable deaths are too, or "those deaths which are potentially preventable by access to high-quality healthy services," he said.
Geographical classification is used to divide the country into rural and urban areas for health research.
Urban areas are in orange, while the rest of Aotearoa is classed as rural, including most of Te Waipounamu / South Island.
Despite that, the gap between rural and urban outcomes could be about to close, according to health minister Dr Ayesha Verrall.
"We need to reorientate our health care services to treat rural people as a priority population," she told Newshub.
The results of this study will help inform the Rural Health Strategy announced today as part of the Government's healthy futures reform.
Associate health minister Willow-Jean Prime said it's access to health services is a priority.
"Making sure that services are more accessible, closer to home for rural communities - how we do that and work with local communities to provide those services is really important.
For some, it's a matter of life and death.
NOTES
- The study analysed the age, sex, ethnicity and cause of 160,179 deaths registered in New Zealand between 2014 and 2018.
- Deaths were categorised into five outcomes; all-cause, amenable (those that are potentially avoidable if given effective and timely healthcare), cardiovascular, cancer and injury.
- Mortality rates are higher in rural areas than in major urban areas across all groups aged under 60.
- Those aged under 30 in the most rural communities where the mortality rates were double that of the most urban centres - 599 deaths in urban areas per 100,000 compared with 1,085 in rural areas.
- The disparities are most evident for injury and amenable death.
