To: Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora
Subject: Medication Exposure as a Mandatory Field in Suicide Reporting

Dear Health New Zealand,

Under the Official Information Act 1982, I request the following information.

1. Medication‑Exposure Field in Suicide Reporting
Please provide all documents, policies, internal guidance, data standards, or reporting frameworks that explain:

why medication exposure (including prescribed psychotropic and non‑psychotropic medicines) is not a mandatory field in national suicide reporting systems,

whether this omission is intentional, historical, or the result of system‑design constraints, and

any assessments, reviews, or discussions regarding the inclusion of medication‑status fields in suicide surveillance datasets.

2. Risk‑Warning Alignment
Many commonly prescribed medications include adverse‑effect warnings for:

aggression

akathisia

behavioural toxicity

self‑harm

suicidal thoughts or actions

Please provide any documents, risk assessments, or internal analyses that consider whether these known risks should require medication‑exposure data to be collected in suicide reporting.

3. System‑Design Decisions
Please provide all documents that describe:

how the decision was made not to include medication exposure as a standard data field,

any consultations with Medsafe, coronial services, or mental‑health services regarding this decision, and

any evaluations of the impact of this omission on suicide‑prevention policy, pharmacovigilance, or public‑health surveillance.

4. Future Plans
Please provide any documents, proposals, or work programmes that relate to:

adding medication‑exposure fields to suicide reporting,

linking coronial toxicology data with national health datasets, or

improving monitoring of medication‑related behavioural adverse effects.

If no such documents exist, please confirm this explicitly.

5. Data Held
Please confirm whether Health NZ holds any dataset — historical or current — that records whether individuals who died by suicide were:

taking prescribed medication,

recently started or stopped medication, or

undergoing dose changes.

If no such dataset exists, please state the reason.

Format
Please provide the information in electronic form.

Yours faithfully,
Nigel Gray