Bruce Moon: “Lies, damned lies and statistics”

In a paper published in the refereed journal, “Social Science and Medicine”, Arthur Grimes, Professor of Wellbeing and Public Policy at the School of Government and Senior Fellow at Motu Research, together with Rowan Ropata Macgregor Thom offers his opinion, which he states is that of “many New Zealanders” on “why Māori experience inequity across several social outcomes and why these inequities seem to occur in perpetuity”.  

While asserting that “other examples abound” he gives “as just one example”  “Māori adult smoking rates (at 22.3 per cent) are much higher than for the general population (9.4 per cent).  They do not elucidate this statement further.

“Inequities”??  Synonyms for “inequity” given in my dictionary, the “Shorter Oxford”, are “want of justice” or “unfairness”.  So where exactly, I ask, is the unfairness or want of justice in any individual’s decision to have a smoke and just who is it who suffers accordingly?  (Not, surely, an unfair question?)