Inequalities & Social Determinants Projects
Socioeconomic & other inequalities in unscheduled care
Emergency departments are under increasing pressure, with increased wait times seen across the UK. In Glasgow, there are on average 30,000-40,000 attendances per month. It can be challenging to provide high-quality services that meet patient needs.
This project will find out who is attending emergency departments in Glasgow, for what reason, and what their health outcomes are following attendance. It will compare attendance by patient characteristics; age, sex, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and urban/rural location. Furthermore, it will measure whether there are patterns of inequality in the outcomes of different patient groups based on these characteristics, and if inequality has changed over time. Finally, it will explore whether attendance at emergency departments is appropriate for patients, and what proportion of them would have been better treated elsewhere.
Lead Investigator: Dr Claire Hastie
Evaluating impact of minimum unit pricing for alcohol on hospital admissions among people with harmful alcohol use
Alcohol remains an important cause of ill-health and early death in Scotland. As part of a range of measures to tackle this problem, in May 2018, Scotland introduced a minimum unit price (MUP) for alcoholic drinks of 50p per unit. Research on how MUP has affected the health of the Scottish population suggests that it has reduced the overall toll of deaths and hospital admissions related to alcohol. However, we know less about how MUP might have affected the smaller number of people who are drinking alcohol at harmful or dependent levels.
One way of investigating this is to use data routinely generated from healthcare services as part of their day-to-day activities, known as routine or administrative data. We plan to use routine data to look at whether rates of alcohol-related hospital stays among people who have received thiamine, a vitamin commonly prescribed to people with harmful/dependent drinking, changed with the introduction of MUP. This will help us understand the specific impacts of MUP among people who are more likely to experience alcohol-related harms, and therefore to better understand whether MUP has been effective in its goals.
Lead Investigator: Dr Emily Tweed