The Canterbury Wellbeing Index was produced by Community and Public Health (a division of the Canterbury District Health Board) with the support of a number of contributing agencies.

It provided information about the wellbeing of the local population. For the most part, unless data sources preclude this, the Index focused on the geographical boundary of greater Christchurch, which is made up of the Territorial Authorities of Christchurch City, Selwyn District and Waimakariri District.

History of the Canterbury Wellbeing Index

The Canterbury Wellbeing Index was initially developed by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) with the support of multiple agencies, to track the progress of the social recovery from the Canterbury earthquake sequence of 2010-2011 in greater Christchurch. In late 2011, CERA convened a series of meetings with representatives from 28 agencies to identify the social indicators that should be tracked through the recovery. Expert advice was received through the literature review of international best practice “Designing indicators for measuring recovery from disasters”, provided by Canterbury DHB. The Canterbury Wellbeing Index was published annually by CERA between 2013 and 2015. 

View or download past editions of the Index on the Community and Public Health website.

Social recovery monitoring was inherited by the Ministry of Health and delegated to the Canterbury DHB with the disestablishment of CERA in April 2016. The 2016 Index was produced by the Canterbury DHB largely using the same process and indicators as developed by CERA. In the 2016 release, Canterbury DHB indicated the future direction for the Index, including placing a greater emphasis on factors that shape or influence wellbeing and the distribution of these factors across different population groups.

At the time of transfer, a cross-agency Greater Christchurch Psychosocial Governance Group was formed to oversee the continued psychosocial recovery and monitoring work that the Canterbury DHB inherited from CERA. This group included representation from:

• Canterbury DHB;
• Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet;
• Ministry of Education;
• Ministry of Health;
• NZ Police;
• Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu (the Whānau Ora commissioning agency for the South Island);
• Ministry of Social Development;
• Christchurch City Council;
• Selwyn District Council; and
• Waimakariri District Council.

The Psychosocial Governance Group approved a review of the Canterbury Wellbeing Index by the Canterbury DHB in 2017, with no Index being produced in 2017. The review included an analysis of international and national examples of wellbeing monitoring, including indicator selection, a survey of local users of health and wellbeing information, and stakeholder engagement including a well-attended workshop and specific engagement with Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu, local Councils, and other key agencies with an interest in providing data or involved in similar work locally.

A proposal to move the Index to an on-line format with a revised set of indicators, a broad wellbeing focus and a complementary set of indicators focused on Māori conceptualisations of wellbeing (the current online Index) was approved by the Psychosocial Governance Group in late 2017.

How the Canterbury Wellbeing Index was developed

Administrative and survey data from multiple agencies was used as source data for the indicators in the Canterbury Wellbeing Index. Some data was accessed via publicly available websites and others were requested as a custom data request directly from the agency.  Where possible, indicators were tailored to the greater Christchurch boundary comprised of Christchurch City, and the Selwyn and Waimakariri districts.

In addition, the Canterbury Wellbeing Survey, an annual representative survey of approximately 2,500 Christchurch City, Selwyn District and Waimakariri District residents was used as a source of local data. The Canterbury Wellbeing Survey was developed to provide recovery-focused data on the wellbeing of the residents of greater Christchurch after the earthquakes and has now evolved to also include questions that relate to wider aspects of wellbeing. The most recent survey partners are Canterbury DHB, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, Christchurch City Council, Waimakariri District Council, Selwyn District Council, and the University of Canterbury.

More detailed information about the data sources for each indicator can be found with the metadata for each indicator in the Index Data section of the website.

In order to meaningfully consider the wellbeing of the greater Christchurch population, time series and national comparisons were presented where feasible and statistical significance testing is noted where it has been provided with data. Differences between population groups (breakdowns by geography, ethnicity, income, gender, age, or disability status) were provided where these are feasible and meaningful.

Draft indicators were subjected to internal peer review processes, and agencies who contributed data had the opportunity to review the content prior to public release. He Tohu Ora was reviewed from a cultural perspective by Ihi Research.

Note: There is no plan to conduct to the Canterbury Wellbeing Survey again or to continue to update the Canterbury Wellbeing Index as funding is no longer available.

Responding to trends identified in the Canterbury Wellbeing Index

The Canterbury Wellbeing Index was intended to be a comprehensive source of information to support local collaboration, planning, decision-making and advocacy to support and promote community wellbeing.

Emerging trends and issues identified through the Canterbury Wellbeing Index were previously used to inform decision-making by a range of local and national agencies and partnership groups, including:

• the Greater Christchurch Partnership; and
• Waka Toa Ora (formerly known as Healthy Christchurch) - supporting the Health Communities workstream of the Greater Christchurch Partnership.

Acknowledgements

The Canterbury Wellbeing Index Team gratefully acknowledges the many individuals and organisations that have supported and contributed to the Canterbury Wellbeing Index from 2016 to 2023.

In particular we would like to acknowledge:

• Data providers and reviewers;
• Greater Christchurch Psychosocial Governance Group;
• Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu;
• Canterbury Wellbeing Survey partners and Survey Working Group members;
• Ihi Research;
• Meanwhile Design Studio; and
• Staff at Community and Public Health – analysis, writing and web development.

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