Health agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) do not consider gambling a public health issue, and as a consequence there are no global public health frameworks for gambling. The purpose of this report is to provide a summary of the evidence demonstrating why gambling should be considered a public health issue and how public health can inform gambling strategies using evidence from other domains and jurisdictions. The report includes a scoping review of the literature on the social determinants of health and how they relate to gambling, and explores strategies from existing public health initiatives for tobacco, alcohol, and other substance use that can be applied to gambling. The report also discusses Australia and New Zealand's efforts to approach gambling as a public health issue. The report concludes that an approach to gambling that considers social determinants of health is warranted. It also advocates for adopting strategies that address multiple addictions including gambling, and taking existing successful public health strategies for substance use and adapting them for gambling.
This is the full technical report for this study. A two-page plain-language project summary is also available on the GREO Evidence Centre here.
