About Community and Public Health / Nga Korero Ra

Community and Public Health (formerly known as Crown Public Health) serves as the Public Health Unit (PHU) for three District Health Boards:

• Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB);
• South Canterbury District Health Board (SCDHB); and
• West Coast District Health Board (WCDHB).

Community and Public Health provides public health services to those people living in these three regions, and is a division of the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB).

• Find out more about what Public Health is.

Over 120 staff are located at offices in Christchurch, Ashburton, Timaru and Greymouth. They aim to create environments, policies, communities, and families/whānau that support healthy choices and lifestyles.

• Read an explanation of the different roles at Community and Public Health.
• View lists of staff employed by Community and Public Health.

Visit the Canterbury District Health Board website for information on other divisions or departments including the Public Health Nursing Service, and School and Community Dental Services.

Community and Public Health’s goals are to:

• Improve the health and wellbeing of our region, especially for children and young adults
• Reduce health inequalities especially for those of relative socio-economic deprivation
• Improve Māori and Pacific health outcomes
• Prevent illness and hospitalisation
• Work in partnership to achieve lasting change.

Community and Public Health works on collaborative projects and initiatives with councils, government agencies, community organisations, and other members of the health sector like PHOs.

• Download the Community and Public Health Vision and Purpose Statement [83 KB].

How Community and Public is structured

Community and Public Health is divided into teams that reflect regional diversity and core public health functions.

• Download the Community and Public Health Structure Information Sheet.

Teams in the Canterbury office of Community and Public Health

The main office in Christchurch has the largest number of staff and so is arranged into the following work streams to provide the core public health functions:

• Communities – working to prevent chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes by addressing the behavioural and environmental risk factors, through environments and schools sub-teams.
• Information – identifying and providing information about the population’s health status, including what factors affect health. Includes an Information Systems sub-team.
• Policy – using the Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach and health impact assessment (HIA) to influence change.
• Protection – protecting health and wellbeing in communities, with environmental health and communicable disease sub-teams.
• Smokefree ABC – providing smoking cessation support at Canterbury DHB hospitals and facilities.

The Canterbury office also hosts the staff responsible for the All Right? wellbeing campaign and provides services for the Chatham Islands.

Regional Offices: working hard for their communities

There are also regional staff meeting the specific public health needs of their respective communities:

• Mid-Canterbury – based in Ashburton
• South Canterbury – based in Timaru
• West Coast – based in Greymouth