A total of 5,972,102 ED events were available for analysis between 2006 and 2012. Of these, 1,168,944 involved Māori and 4,803,158 involved non-Māori.

Our analysis of descriptive data showed some clear differences between the groups.

EEDI findings from this part of the study include:

• The proportion of ED events per year have increased over time for both Māori (10.8% to 16.3%) and non-Māori (11.6% to 16.2%.
• The gender profile associated with all ED events was similar for Māori and non-Māori (i.e. 49.7% and 48.5% female, respectively).
• A higher proportion of Māori ED events were seen within the younger age groups compared to non-Māori, particularly those aged 0–4 years (i.e. 17.7% vs 10.4%, respectively) and 15–24 years (i.e. 20.2% vs 14.7%, respectively). In contrast, 15.1% of non-Māori ED events were in those aged 75 years versus 2.9% of Māori ED events.
• The NZDep profile differs between Māori and non-Māori ED events. A total of 66.7% of all Māori ED events were from the three most deprived deciles compared to 39.6% of non-Māori ED events. The highest proportion of Māori ED events (30.3%) were from decile 10 and the highest proportion of non-Māori ED events from decile 8 (14.0%). The lowest proportion of ED events for both Māori and non-Māori were from decile 1 (1.4% and 6.2%, respectively).
• The highest proportion of Māori ED events came from the Midland and Northern regions (40.5% and 30.4%, respectively). The highest proportion of non-Māori events came from the Northern and Central regions (36.6% and 28.3%, respectively).
• The highest proportion of Māori ED events came from Waikato (11.5%), Counties Manukau (10.7%) and Bay of Plenty (10.5%) District Health Boards.
• The highest proportion of non-Māori events came from Auckland (11.7%), Waitematā (11.2%) and Canterbury (10.6%) District Health Boards.
• Non-Māori ED events had a higher proportion of arrival into ED through ambulance, police or helicopter compared to Māori ED events (26.6% vs 18.7%, respectively).
• A total of 63.5% of Māori ED events arrived via self-presentation compared to 57.6% of non-Māori ED events.

• Māori ED events had a higher proportion of self-referral compared to non-Māori ED events (77.2% vs 70.6%, respectively).
• Non-Māori ED events had a higher proportion of Other Health Professional referral compared to Māori ED events (13.0% vs 8.1%, respectively).

• A higher proportion of Māori ED events were triaged to be seen within a longer time frame compared to non- Māori ED events, that is 120 min (13.6% vs 10.6%, respectively) and 60 min (41.8% vs 39.0%, respectively).
• A higher proportion of non- Māori ED events were triaged to be seen within 10 min compared to Māori ED events(10.1%vs8.1%, respectively).

The proportion of Māori ED events categorised as trauma was only slightly higher than non-Māori ED events (28.5% vs 27.3%).