Community wellbeing: key points

  • Wellbeing is increasingly seen as an essential component of population health. In recent years, policies and other reports have highlighted its importance with, for example, the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 being explicit about government's role in improving wellbeing.
  • Two recent reports - Scotland's mental health and its context: adults 2009 and Wellbeing: A better way of measuring society's progress (1.92mb)- include examples of indicators that can promote or undermine community wellbeing in Scotland. Those shown here cover neighbourhood satisfaction and trust.
  • Neighbourhood satisfaction (which can contribute to community wellbeing) varies by place and by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintile. People living in more deprived communities and West Central Scotland are less likely to agree that their neighbourhood is a good place to live.
  • More than half of adults in Scotland in the least deprived SIMD quintile agreed most people could be trusted, compared with less than a third of adults living in the most deprived SIMD quintile.
  • There are a number of other sources of data (e.g. Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics) which might be exploited to explore indicators of community wellbeing.

Section updates:

  • The last major update of this section was completed in March 2011.
  • The next major update is due to be carried out by end March 2012.