GambleAware has made its 2019 and 2020 data records on UK treatment and support of gambling harms available through the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC). 

The decision sees GambleAware promote a ‘policy of open data’ to the wider research community and continue to diversify the range of academic stakeholders engaged in scrutinising the impact of gambling harms.

Moving forward, GambleAware’s ‘Annual Treatment & Support’ surveys will be made available through the CDRC’s online catalogue.

Researched by YouGov, the annual surveys provide a comprehensive breakdown on the make-up of participants engaged with treatment and support services – providing insights on participation, demographic variables, facilitators and barriers to accessing treatments.   

“We are pleased that this rich data set is now freely available to academics and researchers across GB and elsewhere in the world,” said Interim Research Director at GambleAware Alison Clare. 

“GambleAware currently uses only a small proportion of this data in our Annual GB Treatment & Support report and GB maps showing gambling harms prevalence and treatment demand at ward level.”  

She added: “There is so much more that researchers from a range of disciplines could do with it through secondary analysis and investigation. Longer-term, we hope that the catalogue of data sets held by the CDRC in this field will grow, with others’ also making their data openly available to the wider field”.

The CDRC serves as the UK’s leading source of consumer data and part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC’s) Big Data Programme. 

The research centre is focused on providing data and insights on societal and economic challenges faced by the UK public policy and academic community

Welcoming GambleAware’s participation, Oliver O’Brien, Centre Technical Manager at the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) said: “we are delighted to announce a new partnership with GambleAware.

“As part of this new collaboration, the CDRC has made available the fully anonymised response data from the GambleAware Treatment and Support Survey. The survey provides a unique look at a detailed examination of gambling participation, harms and support in Great Britain. Alongside access to the data, trusted researchers will also receive associated metadata which they can use towards their research project.”