Gambling-Harm in a Community Foodbank Setting: Exploring the Feasibility and Utility of a Brief Non-Clinical Screening Approach

Background: Gambling is a significant public health issue, with recent prevalence data confirming that people who have gambled in the previous 12 months experience severe consequences including bankruptcy, relationship breakdown and suicide ideation. There is a critical need to assess and respond to the distribution of problems across population subsets and communities, especially in non-clinical, volunteer-administered, time-limited contexts. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of gambling harm in a foodbank setting and to evaluate the feasibility of brief, volunteer-administered screening tools.Methods: All foodbank users accessing a service in NW England over 2023 were screened using two gambling harm tools. Positive screen responses were recorded based on responses from a mixed sex sample to a modified Lie/Bet screen (n=1247) and PGSI-Mini (n=1922). Results: Over 3% of respondents reported experiences of severe gambling-related harm, with males substantially over-represented among positive screens. However, despite signposting to rapidly available support and treatment delivered via a variety of formats (face-to-face, telephone or online) no individual identified as experiencing severe gambling harm accepted a referral. Conclusions: We argue that rolling out rapid, community-based screening using tools accessible to non-clinical and volunteer staff can support earlier identification of gambling harms and inform a public health approach that better reflects where and how gambling-related distress is experienced. Although support and treatment was often refused, knowledge of the source of distress equips help providing organisations to better target support for gambling harms within their own settings while screening in community settings could offer new delivery points for treatment services.