Holding a mirror to society? The socio-demographic characteristics of students commencing health professional programmes, and all courses, at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka (the University of Otago), 1994-2023.

Aim: To present selected key findings from a longitudinal analysis of the socio-demographic characteristics of students entering all courses at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka (the University of Otago), all health professional programmes combined, and 11 individual health professional programmes between 1994 and 2023.

Method: Data sources: 1) university electronic collections of student data (programme details, demographics, schooling, home address), and 2) publicly available datasets (some socio-demographic variables). Analyses included counts and proportions of commencing students, disaggregated by time period and socio-demographic variables, and commencement rates per 100,000 population aged 18-29 years.

Results: During this 30-year period, there was a notable increase in the overall proportion of domestic health professional programme students who were Māori or Pacific, and an increase in enrolments of students from rural backgrounds. The socio-economic profile of incoming students remained unchanged, with students being highly skewed towards those from more socio-economically privileged backgrounds. The proportion of domestic health professional programme students who were female increased across all years, reaching nearly two-thirds by the study end.

Conclusion: While efforts to enhance health professional student diversity have had a positive impact, the university's vision of a health workforce that represents Māori and the diverse contexts of Aotearoa New Zealand's society will require long-term ongoing commitment.