Health Protection Team

Our team is part of the wider Population Health Team which sits within National Public Health Service, Te Matau a Māui/Hawke's Bay, Central Region, Te Whatu Ora (NPHS). We work within many pockets of our community to improve health and keep people well by delivering a range of planned programmes, as well as public health alert and communicable disease advice.

We look after:

  • Environmental health: In areas such as drinking water, recreational water, border health and emergency management. Click on a link in the list of topics below for further information on what we do.

  • Notifiable and communicable diseases: Investigate and respond to notifications and outbreaks of illnesses such as E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter and Giardia. For communicable disease information sheets – click here.

The Health Protection Team comprises

  • Health Protection Officers (HPOs) work to protect and promote the health and wellbeing of people across the Hawke's Bay region from actual and potential environmental hazards and risks.

  • HPOs work closely along side Medical Officers of Health who are trained as specialists in public health medicine and play a supportive leadership role in guiding the Health Protection Team. 

  • Health Protection/Promotion Advisor works alongside the HPOs in the Alcohol Licensing and Smokefree Environments fields of work to provide harm reduction regulatory control, education and health promotion.

  • Technical Assistant works to support and assist HPOs in their role. Undertakes the Port of Napier and Hawkes Bay Airport Biosecurity and Quarantine surveillance programme and participates in Health Protection planning for emergency management.

We support the following areas of health and wellbeing in our community:

Key partners we work closely alongside include:

Hawke's Bay Regional Council, Territorial Local Authorities (Wairoa, Napier, Hastings and Central Hawke's Bay), Ministry for Primary Industries, Ministry of Education, Hawkes Bay Emergency Management, WorkSafe (Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment), Environmental Protection Authority, Hawke’s Bay Airport and Napier Port, among others.