Atlas of Healthcare Variation Mapi Hauora Kē

The Atlas is designed to prompt debate and raise questions about health service use and provision amongst clinicians, users and providers of health services about why any differences exist, and to stimulate improvement through this debate.

The Atlas highlights variation but does not suggest an ideal level (high is not necessarily good or bad; the average is not necessarily the ideal). This means that it should not be used as a tool for judging the performance of one geographic area against another.

The Atlas is organised by domains, which cover specific clinical areas. Examples include diabetes, asthma, gout, opioids and mental health in primary care.

Finding variation may raise some important questions that might help you improve the quality of health services. In certain parts of the country you might find there’s a much higher incidence of disease or much lower rates of certain medicines being dispensed.

In each Atlas domain, we suggest questions to help understand why regional variation exists within different areas of health care.

Each Atlas domain includes a set of indicators developed and agreed by clinicians and subject‑matter experts. Results are presented by age, gender, ethnicity, health district, and rural or urban living.

Some domains also have analysis by primary health organisation.

December 2025

New updates to the Polypharmacy atlas have been published

November 2025

New updates to the Opioids atlas have been published

September 2025

New updates to the Asthma atlas have been published.

December 2024

The new Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease atlas has been published.

If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions for topic areas please email  info@hqsc.govt.nz