Scottish Government Prevention Unit: Areas of Shared Interest

Area of Interest 2 – Person-centric/ Targeting groups facing (multiple) disadvantage

Introduction

Why we are interested in the topic

Life course is an important concept in prevention, from early years to older adults. Evidence shows that intervening early in the life course can have a significant higher return on investment than intervening later. This doesn’t just mean all investment going to early years, the life course has lessons for when to intervene earlier to support those in older age groups too. Shaping investments to support this life course view will help improve the impact of prevention policy.

Description existing work contributing to the evidence in these areas

There is a large body of research and data development in the Scottish public sector that are looking at population segmentation and how to enact person-centric approaches to key at-risk groups of the population

In Scottish Government, there is a number of strategies that are looking at particular groups, such as the Child Poverty Delivery Plans, Alcohol and Drugs Mission, Mental Health and Wellbeing, Violence Prevention approaches. Health there are a number of policies, such as screening, that are targeting key at-risk groups of the population and intervening at the right point.

In academic and think tank reports, there are also a number of studies that focus on intervention on key groups of the population. The Hard Edges Scotland provided the first Scotland-wide estimate of the scale and nature of severe and multiple disadvantage.Elsewhere, SHERU has produced work highlighting that men aged 18–44 are often overlooked by preventative policy despite facing elevated risks of drug deaths, alcohol deaths, suicide and other "deaths of despair". The Scottish Parliament developed briefing examines suicide, isolation, substance misuse and gambling-related harms among men in Scotland and discusses targeted policy approaches, including preventative and early-intervention measures. Drug Research Network Scotland have developed research on preventing substance use-related harms among you people in Scotland, focussed on young people under age 25. The Scottish Violence Reduction Unit has published evaluations and evidence reviews focused on preventing violence among young people, including programmes aimed at those at heightened risk of involvement in violence.