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Deprivation — IMD

The New Zealand Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) measures deprivation at the neighbourhood level using custom-designed data zones (on average a data zone has a population of 761 people) [8]. The IMD consists of seven domains of deprivation (income, employment, crime, housing, health, education, and access to services) and includes 28 indicators which have been created using routinely-collected data from government agencies, as well as census data [9]. The seven domains are weighted based on their relative importance to socioeconomic deprivation, adequacy of their indicators, and robustness of the data they use [9].

Data zones are ranked from 1 (least deprived) to 6,181 (most deprived) and grouped in five quintiles (quintile 1 represents the 20% least deprived data zones in New Zealand; while quintile 5 represents the 20% most deprived data zones in New Zealand) [8]. A strength of the IMD is that domains can be used in combination or individually, therefore users are able to see what health or social outcomes are driving deprivation within a given geographical area [9]. Like the New Zealand Deprivation Index (NZDep), the IMD is a small-area measure of deprivation: it does not measure the deprivation circumstances of individuals, and therefore not everyone living in a deprived area is deprived [9]. However, a particular strength of the IMD is that users can compare areas that share the same level of overall deprivation (for example Quintile 5) in a geographical area and explore whether the drivers of deprivation (such as the domains) are the same or different.

This indicator presents the proportion of data zones in each quintile of deprivation by overall IMD rank for Christchurch City, Selwyn District, and Waimakariri District.

The figure shows that Selwyn and Waimakariri districts had low levels of overall IMD deprivation with zero percent and 17.5 percent of data zones in those districts falling into the two most deprived quintiles (quintiles 4 and 5), respectively. More than a third (36.0%) of data zones in Christchurch City fell into quintiles 4 and 5, which was less than the national proportion (40%). Selwyn District had the highest proportion of data zones in the least deprived quintiles (quintiles 1 and 2) at 93.6 percent, followed by Waimakariri District (58.1%) and Christchurch City (44.1%).