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© 1985 Oxford University Press

other

Mortality among New Zealand Maori and Non-Maori Mormons

A H SMITH*,§, D I POOL**, N E PEARCE*, J L LYON{dagger}, B M LILLEY*, P B DAVIS{ddagger} and I A M PRIOR*

*Department of Community Health and Epidemiology Unit, Wellington Clinical School of Medicine, Wellington Hospital Wellington, New Zealand
**Population Studies Centre, University of Waikato Hamilton, New Zealand
{dagger}Department of Family and Community Medicine, The University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
{ddagger}Department of Community Health, Medical School, Auckland University Auckaland, New Zealand

§ Present address: School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

Smith AH (School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA), Pool D I, PearceNE, LyonJ L, Lilley B M, Davis P B and Prior I A M. Mortality among New Zealand Maori and non-Maori Mormons. International Journal of Epidemiology 1985, 14: 285–271.

Mortality rates for New Zealand Maori and non-Maori Mormons in the period 1970–77 have been compared with those for non-Mormons in the census year 1976 to measure the impact of the Mormon lifestyle on differences in mortality between Maoris and non-Maoris. Maori mortality was much lower among Mormons than non-Mormons suggesting that environmental, rather than genetic factors, play a predominant role in the relatively high overall Maori mortality. However the prevalence of smoking among Maori Mormons was not much lower than for the general Maori population. Reasons for the relative mortality advantage of Maori Mormons were therefore not clear, although attitudes to health and health services utilization, and the influence of strong social support networks, might be involved. Paradoxically, non-Maori Mormon mortality rates were similar to those for non-Mormons. A combination of factors appeared to contribute to this finding including the fact that 26% of non-Maori Mormons were of Pacific Island origin, non-Maori Mormons were of lower socioeconomic status than other non-Maoris, and part Maoris probably constitute a high, but unknown, proportion of Mormons classified as non-Maoris.

Received 1 December 1984


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