An indicator on potentially hazardous drinking has been added to the Health domain. Potentially hazardous drinking is defined as an established pattern of drinking that carries a high risk of future damage to physical or mental health, but may not yet have resulted in significant adverse effects.

The market income per person indicator is now based on December years, rather than on March years. This change will enable each edition of the social report to use very recent data for this indicator. Reporting on the basis of a March year meant data was often over a year old.

In previous social reports, the indicator on population with low incomes has included an ethnic breakdown. This edition does not. The Ministry of Social Development considers the sample size in the Household Economic Survey, which is the data source for this indicator, is not large enough to continue to support a reliable time series for an analysis by ethnicity. Statistics New Zealand supports this assessment.

The participation in physical activity indicator is now based on the Ministry of Health’s Health Survey. It was previously based on data from Sport and Recreation New Zealand’s (SPARC’s) continuous monitor survey, which was a temporary measure until a more robust data source became available.