Liepins T, Davie G, Miller R, Whitehead J, De Graaf B, Clay L, Crengle S and Nixon G (2024). Rural–urban variation in COVID-19 vaccination uptake in Aotearoa New Zealand: Examining the national roll-out. Epidemiology and Infection, 152, e7, 1–8 OPEN ACCESS https://doi.org/10.1017/S0950268823001978 This paper led by Talis, a PhD candidate with the Rural Section at University of Otago, is the first of three exploring the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in rural Aotearoa NZ using mixed methods and funded through the Ministry of Health COVID-19 and National Immunisation Programme research. Here a statistical approach was taken to link the national Health Service User data with COVID-19 immunisation records and the Geographical Classification for Health categories. Further publications from Prof. Garry Nixon’s team will be posted as they become publicly available & describe i) the development of an interactive tool to support these findings https://gch-nz.shinyapps.io/covid_vaccine/ and ii) a qualitative paper on rural health provider perspectives of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout in four rural towns with a focus on Māori and Pasifika communities.

The rural accelerated chest pain pathway (RACPP) has been shown to safely reduce the number of transfers to hospital for patients who present with chest pain to rural general practice.