NCEA Level 3 Health cheat sheet

NCEA Level 3 Health - Key Concepts, Models and Decision Rules

• Socio-ecological model: health outcomes are shaped at five interacting levels - individual (knowledge, skills, attitudes), interpersonal (family, peers, whānau), organisational/institutional (school, workplace, health service), community (cultural norms, media, local networks), and public policy (laws, funding, regulation). Effective health-promoting action targets more than one level at once.

• Determinants of health divide into modifiable factors (physical activity, diet, sleep, alcohol and tobacco use, help-seeking behaviour) and non-modifiable or structural factors (genetics, age, ethnicity, income, housing, education, access to services). Analysis should separate the two before proposing action.

• Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and improve, their health; it is not the same as health education (informing) or disease treatment (clinical care). The Ottawa Charter's five action areas are: build healthy public policy, create supportive environments, strengthen community action, develop personal skills, and reorient health services.

• Te Tiriti o Waitangi in health: partnership, participation and protection underpin culturally safe practice. Kaupapa Māori approaches place mātauranga Māori and whānau self-determination at the centre; whanaungatanga (relationships), manaakitanga (care and respect) and wairua (spiritual wellbeing) are legitimate health concepts, not add-ons.

• Māori models of health: Te Whare Tapa Whā (taha wairua, taha hinengaro, taha tinana, taha whānau) treats the four walls as interdependent - weakness in one wall destabilises the whole house. Fonofale (Pacific) uses a fale metaphor: foundation (family), posts (culture, spirituality, physical, mental), roof (context: time, environment, politics).

• The Health Promotion Competencies and the planning cycle follow a logic: identify the need (data, community voice), set SMART objectives, choose strategies matched to determinants, implement with the community, then evaluate using process, impact and outcome indicators. Evaluation must be planned at the design stage, not added at the end.

• Risk and protective factors interact: protective factors (connectedness, secure cultural identity, positive role models, access to services) buffer risk factors (poverty, family harm, bullying, easy access to alcohol). A protective-factor approach is preferred to a deficit or blame model because it identifies realistic leverage points.

• Ethical and research considerations: informed consent, confidentiality, avoiding harm, cultural consultation, and the principle that communities should benefit from research about them. When interpreting statistics, distinguish correlation from causation, check whether rates are age-standardised, and note that small-number counts produce wide confidence intervals.