GambleAware has detailed the outcome of its recent grant award process, as the charity aims to take “an important step towards reducing the current inequalities in gambling harms”.
This has seen GambleAware award £300,000, up from £250,000 specified in the original call for proposals, to heighten the knowledge of the lived experiences of minority communities, including minority ethnic, religion, and language groups, in relation to gambling and gambling harms.
Grants have been awarded to a pair of consortia, one led by Ipsos Mori and supported by researchers at the University of Manchester, with a second spearheaded by ClearView Research. Ipsos Mori will lead the overall research.
Objectives to be achieved during the 18-month programme are stipulated as exploring minority communities’ lived experience of gambling, harms, and advice, as well as information, support, and treatment services.
Furthermore, the consortia are to be tasked with looking into the drivers of gambling harms among minority communities in Great Britain, building on international research; as well as identifying the services, interventions, and policies necessary to reduce and prevent gambling harms among these communities
“The experiences of minority communities around gambling are at present under-researched in Great Britain, yet evidence suggests that these groups are more likely to experience harm from gambling, and less likely to access gambling treatment services, compared with white communities,” explained Dr Jay St John Levy, research lead at GambleAware.
“We are very pleased to award this grant to these two consortia who together bring considerable expertise focussing on people’s nuanced lived realities. This will help explore why these communities experience a greater burden of harm, and how to break down the barriers preventing them from accessing services.
“This research will better ensure that GambleAware and others can commission a broad range of treatment and support services that work for minority ethnic, language, and religious communities. It is therefore an important step towards reducing the current inequalities in gambling harms.”
GambleAware adds that a final research report will be published in 2023, with interim reports to be published beforehand, which are to inform the group’s wider five-year strategy that aims to achieve a society free from gambling harms for all communities.
