Seeking third sector data on gambling and harm
- Area of Work: Policy and Research
- Type: News Item
- Published: 29th October 2024
Public Health Scotland are seeking third sector data on access to gambling and its harms in Scotland.
Despite its relatively small population, the UK has one of the largest gambling industries in the world. It generated £15.1 billion in 2022-23 (Total Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) of the Great Britain gambling industry).
The harms associated with gambling are wide ranging and affect the person who is gambling, their family, friends, and community. Gambling is increasingly being seen as a public health problem which connects to many public health issues – poverty, mental health, suicide and addiction.
However, in Scotland, we have very little data on the number of people gambling affects and how it affects them. We need to develop our understanding of the harms caused by gambling much further in order to prevent and reduce them.
Public Health Scotland (PHS) is developing a system to collect better data on gambling harms. We have looked at what data is available from existing national health data sources. Our next step is to link data about people who gamble to potential health harms and to understand what data may exist in local public sector/NHS systems. However, we are aware that to build a full understanding of how gambling affects those who gamble and others, we should draw on as many potential sources of data as possible.
We would therefore like to understand what data third sector organisations may be collecting or have access to on gambling and its harms. We would be interested in hearing from any third sector organisation, who collects gambling harms data from service users. The type of data we are looking for is information that could help us identify the number of people who are experiencing harm from gambling over a given time, their demographic information, and the type of support your organisation provided and outcome.
If you can help, or for any enquiry about PHS’s work on gambling harm, please get in touch: phs.svgharms@phs.scot
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