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This study aimed to identify dietary trends in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) and whether inequities in dietary patterns are changing. We extracted data from the Household Economic Survey (HES), which was designed to provide information on impacts of policy-making in NZ, and performed descriptive analyses on food expenditures. Overall, total household food expenditure per capita increased by 0.38% annually over this period. Low-income households spent around three quarters of what high-income households spent on food per capita. High-income households experienced a greater increase in expenditure on nuts and seeds and a greater reduction in expenditure on processed meat. There was increased expenditure over time on fruit and vegetables nuts and seeds, and healthy foods in Māori (Indigenous) households with little variations in non-Māori households. But there was little change in processed meat expenditure for Māori households and expenditure on less healthy foods also increased over time. Routinely collected HES data were useful and cost-effective for understanding trends in food expenditure patterns to inform public health interventions, in the absence of nutrition survey data. Potentially positive expenditure trends for Māori were identified, however, food expenditure inequities in processed meat and less healthy foods by ethnicity and income continue to be substantial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Out-of-vehicle times were shown to be perceived as being more onerous than in-vehicle time by transit users when making transfers. The present study has two main objectives. The first objective is to determine the effects of uncertainty, in out-of-vehicle times during transfers, on transit users’ willingness to use transfer routes. The second objective is to determine the influence of out-of-vehicle facilities, offered by public-transport (PT) operators, on transit users’ perception of trip attributes related to transfers. A user preference survey was conducted at two major PT terminals in Auckland, New Zealand. The survey data was modelled using cumulative prospect theory and fuzzy logic. The results showed that for all trip attributes, except for comfort, transit users’ exhibited risk averse behaviour; users’ revealed greater preference for the transfer route with less uncertainty in the out-of-vehicle times. For comfort, transit users’ displayed risk-taking characteristics when the waiting time for a seat was less than 5min. Such findings suggest that increasing the consistency in out-of-vehicle times will increase attractiveness of transfer routes thus enabling a more efficient and integrated network of PT routes to result in enlargement of ridership. Policy makers and PT planners must focus on methods of reducing uncertainty in out-of-vehicle times during transfers. Analysis of transit users’ perception of trip attributes, given their current station, revealed statistical evidence of differences for two trip attributes, transfer waiting time and vehicle delay. Such findings indicate that transit users who are accustomed to better out-of-vehicle facilities have a lower tolerance for uncertainty in transfer waiting times and delay times. To the authors’ knowledge, this study provides for the first time in literature a comparison between the two cognitive models. The comparison revealed that CPT and fuzzy logic models are both capable of representing transit users’ decision making process. However, while CPT provides an indication of transit users’ preference for a transfer route, fuzzy logic is capable of providing a closer approximation of the proportion of transit users preferring a transfer route. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]