These researchers sought to determine whether relationships exist between socioeconomic factors, geospatial distribution of public access defibrillators (PADs) and incidence of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) within New Zealand. The analyses revealed that cardiac arrest incidence increases with increasing sociodemographic deprivation. Between 1 October 2013 and 30 June 2016, the incidence of OHCA events per 100,000 person-years in the most deprived areas of the NZDep2013 decile was double that of the least deprived areas (156.5 vs 78.0). Analyses of the 2013 Census data revealed that for every 1% increase in the proportion of Māori within a specific census area unit (CAU), the OHCA rate increased significantly by 1.0% (p=0.001); similarly, OHCA rates within a CAU increased significantly with each 1% increase in the proportion of Pacific Peoples (an increase of 0.6%; p=0.005), over 65-year-olds (3.7%; p<0.001) and males (3.7%; p<0.001). An analysis of data obtained from a registry containing all registered PAD locations throughout New Zealand in 2018 revealed that NZDep decile 10 areas had the lowest coverage of PADs compared with less deprived areas (a median 81% of these areas contained PADs vs 65% of NZDep decile 10 areas).
