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Rethinking Labour Market Statistics in Scotland

Enhancing the Evidence Base

Employment and Education Among Young Adults in Scotland

Reflections following the Milburn Review

Assessing Scotland’s approach to employability from a health inequalities perspective

Policy analysis

The Scottish Election

What do the party manifestos say about preventing poor health outcomes?

Webinar: Views on health policy and prevention

A look to the Scottish Election

Assessing the tackling child poverty agenda: the role of prevention

Article

Men and health inequalities in Scotland

Reflections from stakeholder engagement sessions

Poverty, Prevention, and Fairness

Public attitudes towards health inequality and the social determinants of health in the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey

Webinar: Refreshing the National Performance Framework

Webinar

Employability in Scotland: what do we know, and what remains unclear?

Article

Poverty among young adult men in Scotland

Report

The impact of the pandemic on savings and debt: did the experience of Scotland differ from the rest of Great Britain?

Report

Comparing poverty rates in Scotland and the rest of the UK

Report

2025 Inequality Landscape Report Launch

Conference recording

Raising the roof: can Scotland’s Housing to 2040 Strategy help as an approach to reduce health inequalities?

Report

International Definitions and Measures of ‘Affordable Housing’ and Current Local Practices in Scotland

Supplementary briefing

Webinar: Air pollution, policy, and inequality

Lessons for Scotland

Prevention Watch August 2025

A regular SHERU briefing that looks at prevention

Webinar: International Models of Primary Prevention

Lessons for Scotland

Response to the Population Health Framework

SHERU response

Exploring the Health Impacts of Austerity

Research Spotlight

Air Pollution and Inequality in Scotland

Examining differences in pollutant concentrations across Scottish neighbourhoods

Collaborative Research for Meaningful Impact

Enhancing the Evidence Base

Addressing Survey Response Challenges and Leveraging Data Integration in Scotland

Enhancing the Evidence Base: Discussion Paper

Prevention Watch May 2025

A regular Scottish Health Equity Research Unit (SHERU) briefing that looks at prevention

New child poverty data and updates on methodological changes

SHERU Response

UKG Green Paper on changes to health and disability benefits

SHERU Response

Wealth disparities and health inequalities

Research Spotlight

Prevention Watch March 2025

A regular Scottish Health Equity Research Unit (SHERU) briefing that looks at prevention

A new model for economic inactivity in Scotland

Replicating alternative labour market projections

Prevention Watch January 2025

A regular Scottish Health Equity Research Unit (SHERU) briefing that looks at prevention.

Primary 1 Body Mass Index statistics Scotland, 2023/24

Reactive stats summary

New awards of disability benefits for adults

Comparing Scotland with England and Wales

Scotland's Census

Understanding changes in health and socioeconomic inequality since 2011

Life expectancy in Scotland Statistics, 2021-2023

Reactive stats summary

Prevention Watch October 2024

A regular Scottish Health Equity Research Unit (SHERU) briefing that looks at prevention as a means of public service delivery to reduce health inequalities in Scotland.

Homelessness in Scotland Statistics, 2023-24

Reactive stats summary

Alcohol-specific deaths statistics, 2023

Reactive stats summary

The Health Impact of Cash Transfers

Research Spotlight

Housing in England and Scotland

Comparative stats

In our second annual report, we explore two facets of health inequality in Scotland:

In Part 1, we take stock of key health inequality trends that underpin the socio-economic conditions that shape population health, finding that there have been modest gains in some living standards, but this is set against persistent inequalities that continue to drive poor health.

In Part 2, we take a deep dive into deaths from drugs, alcohol and suicide, highlighting young adult men experiencing socio-economic deprivation as a population group at high risk of these preventable deaths.

Labour market data in Scotland, especially at a local authority level, has become increasingly volatile and unreliable over the past five years. As a result, it is increasingly difficult for people in local authorities to understand recent trends in employment, and therefore to make or understand economic decisions.

With this in mind, we developed a model using administrative tax data to understand the labour market at a local authority level.

This dashboard presents modelled employment, unemployment, and economic inactivity at a local level alongside Scotland-level estimates and official labour market statistics sourced from the Annual Population Survey or Labour Force Survey.