Priority setting in health: development and application of a multi-criteria algorithm for the population of New Zealand’s Waikato region

Table 1 Demographic distribution of survey respondents

	% survey respondents	% SmartHealth 2017 population	% WDHB 2013 census population
Gender
Female	64.3^†	63.7	52.3
Male	35.1	36.3	47.7
Other/declined	0.6	0.0	0.0
Age^a
18–29 years	7.1	20.0	18.0
30–49 years	20.7	29.7	35.3
50–69 years	44.8^††	34.5	32.7
70+ years	26.9^††	15.1	14.0
Declined	0.5	0.0	0.0
Education^b
None	0.8	–	0.0
Primary school	0.3	–	16.2
Secondary school	32.8	–	43.9
Vocational school	9.6	–	21.7
College/university or higher	55.7^†††	–	18.2
Declined	0.8	–	0.0
Ethnicity
European	75.9	69.3	71.5
Māori	16.7	18.4	16.7
Pacific peoples	1.7	1.9	2.8
Asian	2.4	6.2	6.6
Middle Eastern/Latin American/African	1.3	–	0.8
Other/declined	2.0	4.2	1.6

^aAge percentage categories for the SmartHealth 2017 population add up to slightly less than 100% since minors are allowed to enroll in SmartHealth, but were not allowed to take the survey. Age percentage categories for the WDHB 2013 census population were calculated for individuals 20 years or older
^bEducation-level data were not available for the SmartHealth 2017 population. Education percentage categories for the WDHB 2013 census population were calculated for individuals 20 years or older
^†The 95% confidence interval estimate of the difference between the female proportion of survey respondents and the female proportion of the WDHB 2013 census population is 9.9–14.9% (χ² = 87.9, df = 1, p < 0.001)
^††The 95% confidence interval estimate of the difference between the older proportion of survey respondents (≥ 50 years of age) and the older proportion of the WDHB 2013 census population is 23.1–27.7% (χ² = 366.3, df = 1, p < 0.001)
^†††The 95% confidence interval estimate of the difference between the college educated proportion of survey respondents (college/university education or higher) and the college educated proportion of the WDHB 2013 census population is 35.3–40.5% (χ² = 1341.2, df = 1, p < 0.001)

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