Dear Ministry of Health,

This OIA request is specifically directed to Clinical, Community and Mental Health Deputy Director-General – Robyn Shearer and her senior leadership team.

Please do not transfer this request to any other department or Directorate. The Clinical, Community and Mental Health Directorate has responsibility for leading three system priorities – clinical leadership, mental health and community and whānau voice. Therefore the public might expect that this Directorate would be briefed on the relationship of mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders with poor dietary intake.

'Clinical leadership – the directorate will work across the sector to bring together clinical expertise from all professions and disciplines and lead and influence across the wider health sector. The directorate will provide strategic clinical leadership across Manatū Hauora, drawing on clinical research, insights, and leading practice locally and globally, informed by its sector-wide clinical network. It will also offer a deep understanding of clinical service delivery and performance, as well as the clinical drivers behind poor or inequitable outcomes.

Mental health – the Ministry’s role is focused on system stewardship. Mental Health and Addiction remains a system and government priority, with the Ministry having Cabinet mandate to monitor and support the implementation of Kia Manawanui Aotearoa – Long-term pathway to mental wellbeing. Achieving this requires targeted action across all our core roles – strategy, policy, legislation, monitoring, and public health.'

This directorate leads three system priorities – clinical leadership, mental health and community and whānau voice. Please provide all reviews, reports and scientific information received by or produced by your Directorate that reviews:
Please supply:

1. Budget for this team for the current and estimated next (2024/2025) financial year.

2. Income of the Deputy Director-General Strategy Policy and Legislation, and numbers of team members and the incomes of the senior leadership team.

3. Terms of reference/expectations for this team and the name of the head of department that established the terms of reference/expectations.

4. Any information held by the directorate discussing the association of ultraprocessed food with poor mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders and outcomes including anxiety, depression, and ADHD.

5. Any information held by the directorate discussing the relationship of nutritional deficiency with poor learning and neurodevelopmental outcomes and mental illness.

6. Monitoring and/or data held reviewing ultraprocessed food consumption in New Zealand diets by age and socioeconomic status.

7. Papers held by your directorate authored or co-authored by Professor Julia Rucklidge, who is plausibly New Zealand’s most published scientist on the relationship of nutrition and mental health.

8. The reported prevalence for food addiction 'is similar to the levels of addiction seen for other legal substances in adults (eg, 14% for alcohol and 18% for tobacco), but the level of implied addiction in children is unprecedented.' Gearhardt et al 2023. What scientific (including social science) information is held by your directorate on the addictive potential of ultraprocessed food?

9. A long-term pathway to mental wellbeing plausibly requires wraparound education to support a shift away from ultraprocessed food dependence to diets rich in safe and nutritious foods.

Please advise if there are proposals for networks of Allied Health, Scientific and Technical Professionals (AHPs) to [a] help support dietary change of patients to improve mental health outcomes; and/or [b] proposals for education resources and funding across the pre-school, primary and secondary education system to increase knowledge of wholefood preparation and increase knowledge of the plausible impact on mental health from diets high in ultraprocessed foods for growing children.

10. Is there engagement with other Ministries or agencies/departments on any policy initiatives which discuss the relationship of poor diets high in ultraprocessed food, with poor mental health?

11. Re: Clinical leadership: which experts in nutrition and mental health have been approached or will be approached to bring together expertise and influence the wider health sector?

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

J Bruning

Dear Ministry of Health OIA Services,

How do you classify, or what term do you use to classify the cluster of symptoms characterised by central obesity, dyslipidaemia, hypertension and insulin resistance?

Yours sincerely,

J Bruning

Dear OIA Team,

You have incorrectly cut and pasted from a different OIA request that is not relevant to this OIA request no. H2023033846.

The original OIA request H2023033846 applies.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

J Bruning

Dear OIA Requests,

Please note that correct reference for this OIA request to Clinical, Community and Mental Health Deputy Director-General- Robyn Shearer and her senior leadership team is:

H2023033846

You incorrectly numbered this as Ref: H2023033842

I continue to wait for Ref: H2023033842 - which was made to Deputy Director General Maree Roberts.

Yours sincerely,

J Bruning

Yours sincerely,

J Bruning