About us:
e pā ana ki a matou
- Canterbury
- Mid Canterbury
- South Canterbury
- West Coast
- Information Systems
- Public Health
- Te Pae Māhutonga
Careers at CPH
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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 (Canterbury DHB);
- 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 as well as the Chatham Islands, and is a division of the Canterbury District Health Board (Canterbury DHB).
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.
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.
Local public health response to novel coronavirus COVID-19
Community and Public Health stood up their EOC in just two hours in late January 2020 in response to COVID-19 with staff ceasing ‘business as usual’ work. Every effort, hour and individual has been focused on the response since then, and will likely be the last organisation to wind down. Our staff have been involved in the local COVID-19 response in many ‘behind the scenes’ ways across Canterbury, South Canterbury, West Coast and the Chatham Islands.
How Community and Public is structured
Community and Public Health is divided into teams that reflect regional diversity and core public health functions.
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 provides services for the Chatham Islands and hosts the staff responsible for the All Right? wellbeing campaign.
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; and
- West Coast – based in Greymouth.