Aim: The aim of this study was to describe trends in intentional self-harm for Pacific peoples in New Zealand by reviewing official data over the period 1996-2015.
Method: Publicly funded hospitalisations where the external cause was intentional self-harm were examined and areas of interest were identified and are presented.
Results: Over a 19-year period (1996-2015), there were 1,608 intentional self-harm events for Pacific peoples (2.8%) out of 58,643 intentional self-harm events nationally for New Zealand's total population.
Conclusion: This study has been able to delineate Pacific ethnic-specific information not previously available for a prolonged period of 19 years. There are differences in Pacific peoples' experiences between ethnic groups. Furthermore, disparities persist between Pacific and non-Pacific. This study exposes priority areas for more targeted interventions according to ethnic, socioeconomic status, gender and age variations.