Better Health For All

The Faculty of Public Health has long recognised gambling as a public health issue. This has led to the creation of a new FPH position statement.

So what was my involvement?

I initiated a conversation with the FPH following a placement at the Welsh Government with Dr Frank Atherton which included producing a chapter for the Chief Medical Officers (CMO) Annual report on gambling as a public health issue.

My first step was to see if a position statement would be both helpful and welcomed by the FPH. Once the principle of the FPH having a position statement on this topic was agreed, I worked up a draft statement with a range of Consultants in Public Health from across the UK who have an interest in this field. This was shared with the membership of the Health Improvement Committee (HIC).

The HIC members referred me to further academic papers that had new themes to explore. Once I had incorporated these into the statement it was shared again with the HIC membership. After a few further comments the paper went to the Policy Committee and they suggested some minor amendments to tighten up the text. This led to the adoption of the Position Statement by the FPH.

The position statement sets out the main issues in relation to public health and then goes on to suggest action that might be taken to tackle this emerging issue in the UK. It should prove helpful when advocating for action, and it will ensure that the FPH’s position is clear and can be justified. The position statement can be found here.

What’s the thinking behind having a position statement?

I hope that it will be a helpful resource to others who may come to this topic with little experience of the issues and help raise awareness of the following:

• Gambling has the potential to cause harm to both individuals and to wider society
• It is an issue that cannot be tackled by interventions aimed solely at individuals
• The harm caused by gambling is unequal in distribution, with those who are economically inactive and living in deprived areas suffering the most harm.

It also sets out a number of actions that could be implemented in the UK to tackle the harm from gambling, for example advocating for the assessment of the totality of any advertising reaching children and young people including television advertising, online advertising, sponsorship and other forms to assess the total impact on children and young people, and use of legislation to tighten regulation of the gambling industry and the sponsorship, marketing, promotion and offers, especially online marketing which is currently reaching children and young people.

For a longer read on gambling as a public health issue see the CMOs latest annual report for wales here. a summary of the work undertaken is also due to be published in the Journal of Public Health soon- so keep a look out!

Written by Claire Beynon, Specialty Registrar in Public Health, Wales.