Source: Health Coalition Aotearoa
Public health experts are challenging politicians, ahead of the general election, to put the health of Kiwis ahead of the profits of tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food industries.
One-quarter, or 350,000, of healthy life-years lost annually to preventable illness are due to these three widely available commercial products.
Today, 20 July, Health Coalition Aotearoa launches its Prevention Brief 2026, a wero to politicians to enact policies, as many other countries have done, to reduce the devastating harm these products cause.
Health Coalition Aotearoa co-chair Professor Boyd Swinburn says, “Thousands of lives can be saved and the stress on our overstretched healthcare system greatly reduced, if the next Government gets serious about prevention: our Prevention Brief offers a blueprint.
“Over the past few years, prevention policies have been reversed or shelved, in favour of industry-friendly policies or no action at all,” Swinburn says. “We need action to reduce the pile-up of preventable cases in the emergency rooms and doctors’ clinics around the country.”
Aotearoa’s low socioeconomic communities are swamped by marketing of harmful products. Children see an average of 68 advertisements a day for unhealthy food and drink. Aotearoa now has the third highest rate of obesity in the OECD, flowing on to a tsunami of diabetes, heart disease and other preventable illnesses.
Smokefree 2025 has come and gone without reaching its target. The national prevalence of seven percent hides appalling inequities, with Māori twice as likely to smoke as non-Māori, and Pacific and people in poor communities also over-represented. Māori life expectancy is six years younger than non-Māori and about a third of that is attributed to differences in smoking rates.
Industry influence has almost certainly played a part.
The past three years have seen the repeal of New Zealand’s globally leading smokefree legislation and the country plummet from second place in the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index to 53rd place. A Helen Clark Foundation report recently found only two in five New Zealanders now trust the Government to do the right thing.
Around 900 deaths and 1,250 cancers per year are caused by alcohol each year, but these figures do not reflect the destructive impacts of alcohol on violence, family harm, suicide, injury and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The costs of those harms are estimated by the Ministry of Health at $9b per year.
Health Coalition Aotearoa interim co-chair Jason Alexander says enacting the policies in the Prevention Brief would immediately reduce stress on our overburdened health system and save lives.
“Prevention is the most cost-effective and arguably the only way to tackle a crisis that will only deepen with an ageing population.
“It’s not just about saving lives. It’s about giving people more years of good health, more time at home with their loved ones, and more freedom to live life on their own terms.”
HCA’s Prevention Brief 2026 is a call-to-action to voters to stand against powerful tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food companies and their undue influence on political decision-makers.