Representation of Asian ethnic subgroups in Aotearoa's regulated health workforce pre-registration students

To provide a socio-demographic profile of Asian students enrolled in their first year of a health professional programme in polytechnics and universities in Aotearoa New Zealand and to explore differences in enrolment rates (ERs) within Asian sub-groups and by socio-economic deprivation, citizenship status, urban/rural location and gender. Ethnic group/sub-group and socio-demographic characteristics of students enrolling within 21 health professional programmes were collected and averaged over 5 years (2016-2020). Age- and ethnicity-matched denominator data from the 2018 Census were used to calculate yearly ERs and ratios (ERR) using generalised linear modelling with the European ethnic group as the reference. The overall ER for Asian students was higher than for Europeans (ERs [95% confidence interval: 280 [269-292] per 100,000 population aged 18-29 per year vs 149 [144-154]). However, Indian, Chinese and Southeast Asian students were under-represented in occupational therapy (ERR: 0.33-0.67, p=