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Respiratory disease in New Zealand

Screenshot 2024 09 16 At 4 06 26 Pm

View a PDF of the full infographic: Respiratory Disease in New Zealand.

The impact of respiratory disease in New Zealand: 2023 update, was created to provide a useful baseline of respiratory statistics in New Zealand. We are working on extending these to present a more complete picture of New Zealand’s respiratory health. Download the full report, and view the one-page summary.

The core set of indicators in the table below was used to measure the prevalence (population rates) and incidence (number of hospital events and deaths) of respiratory disease in general, as well as for individual conditions (asthma, bronchiectasis, childhood bronchiolitis, pneumonia and COPD). Other data sources were also used to estimate the prevalence and costs of asthma.

It is important to note that estimating the extent of respiratory disease is not straightforward. There are issues with reporting, data coding, correct diagnosis, as well as unknown numbers of people who are living with an undiagnosed respiratory condition. For these reasons the estimates below should be treated as conservative.

IndicatorData sourcesLatest analysis
Medicated asthmaNew Zealand Health Survey 2022/2023Over 615,000 people take medication for asthma (adults: 515,000 and children: 104,000)
Respiratory deaths per yearNZHIS Mortality Data3,118 deaths in 2019 (36 per 100,000 people)
Respiratory hospitalisations per yearNational Minimum Dataset (NMDS) hospitalisations (publically funded hospital discharges)78,857 admissions in 2022 (1,541 per 100,000)
Total cost of respiratory disease per year: including private costs (doctors’ visits, prescriptions) and public costs (years of life lost, hospitalisations)Respiratory Impact Report, August 2023$8.4 billion
Respiratory health inequalitiesNMDS and hospitalisations by ethnic group and deprivation (using the New Zealand Deprivation Index)Hospitalisation: 2.4 times higher for Pacific peoples and 1.9 times higher for Māori; 2.2 times higher for most deprived households than least deprived


Presented below is a commentary on the key statistics relating to the conditions presented in The impact of respiratory disease in New Zealand: 2023 update.

Respiratory disease in New Zealand:

  • Respiratory disease includes asthma, bronchiectasis, childhood bronchiolitis, childhood pneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
  • Respiratory disease is New Zealand’s third most common cause of death.
  • Respiratory disease costs New Zealand $8.4 billion every year (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • Respiratory disease accounts for one in eleven of all hospital stays (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • People living in the most deprived households are admitted to hospital for respiratory illness over two times more often than people from the wealthiest areas (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • Across all age groups, hospitalisation rates are much higher for Pacific peoples (2.4 times higher) and Māori (1.9 times higher) than for other ethnic groups (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).

Asthma in New Zealand:

  • Over 615,000 people take medication for asthma − one in eight New Zealanders (Source: New Zealand Health Survey 2022/23).
  • Large numbers of children (2,759 or 286.3 per 100,000 in 2022) are still being admitted to hospital with asthma, and some of these will have had a potentially life-threatening attack (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • By far the highest number of people being admitted to hospital with asthma are Māori, Pacific peoples and people living in the most deprived areas: Māori are 2.5 times and Pacific peoples 2.6 times more likely to be hospitalised than Europeans or other New Zealanders, and people living in the most deprived areas are almost 3 times more likely to be hospitalised than those in the least deprived areas (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • The cost of asthma to the nation is nearly $1.2 billion per year (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).

Bronchiectasis in New Zealand:

  • At least 8,689 (or 170 per 100,000 people) are living with severe bronchiectasis (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • There is a much higher risk of hospitalisation or death for people of Māori and Pacific ethnicity: Pacific people are 6.1 times, and Māori 2.6 times more likely to be hospitalised than other New Zealanders (non-Māori, non-Pacific and non-Asian), and these differences are similar for mortality (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • People living in the most deprived areas are 3.1 times more likely to be hospitalised and 2.3 times more likely to die from bronchiectasis than those in the least deprived areas (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).

Childhood bronchiolitis in New Zealand:

  • Hospitalisation rates have increased by nearly a third, from 3,993 in 2000 to 5,952 (1,964 per 100,000) in 2022 (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • These rates are 2.3 times higher for Māori children and 2.7 times higher for Pacific children than for other New Zealanders (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).

Childhood pneumonia in New Zealand:

In New Zealand, while the overall death rate has not changed over time, hospitalisations have increased, and there are extreme inequities.

  • Childhood death rates from pneumonia are 3.9 times higher for Māori children and 5.6 times higher for Pacific children than for other New Zealanders (non-Māori, non-Pacific, non-Asian). Of the 92 children who died between 2010 and 2019, 40 were Māori and 30 were Pacific (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • Hospitalisation rates are 1.5 times higher for Māori children, 2.4 times higher for Pacific children, and 1.1 times higher for Asian children than for other New Zealanders (non-Māori, non-Pacific, non-Asian) (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • Childhood pneumonia hospitalisation rates are highest in the most deprived areas of New Zealand: nearly 2 (1.9 is the exact figure) times higher in the most deprived areas than in the least deprived areas. Over half of all deaths occur in the most deprived areas (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in New Zealand:

  • 6,644 new cases of COPD in New Zealanders aged 45 and over in 2019 (Barnard & Zhang, 2020).
  • COPD is often undiagnosed, and for this reason at least 300,000 (or 15%) of the adult population may be affected (Broad & Jackson, 2003).
  • Between 2011 and 2022, COPD hospitalisation rates and mortality rates have declined (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • A large proportion of COPD deaths are not recorded as such because of misreporting or a co-morbidity (e.g. heart failure or pneumonia) being the final cause of death.
  • Even with under-reporting, COPD is still the fourth leading cause of death after ischaemic heart disease, stroke and lung cancer (Broad & Jackson, 2003).
  • Hospitalisation rates are highest for Māori, at 3.7 times the non-Māori, non-Pacific, non-Asian rate for hospitalisation, and 2.2 times the rate for mortality (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • Pacific people’s hospitalisation rates are 2.3 times higher than those of other New Zealanders (Barnard & Zhang, 2024).
  • COPD hospitalisation rates are 5.2 times higher in the most deprived areas than in the least deprived, and mortality rates are 2.5 times higher (Barnard & Zhang, 2020).
  • COPD rates vary across the country, with hospitalisations highest in Whanganui, and mortality highest in West Coast DHB (Barnard & Zhang, 2020).