Poster no. 88

Projects and activities directed to socially excluded
groups and to groups at risk of social exclusion in
Nordic countries - results from a survey

Cecilia Unge, Tuula Ainetdin, Bo Burström, Elisabeth Hägglund, Per Tillgren

Karolinska Institutet (KI), Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Social medicine

Abstract

A questionnaire was done in 1997 to gather information on current research initiatives and regular interventive activities with regard to prevention of social exclusion.

Material/method

A semi-structured questionnaire was sent to 190 institutions and authorities in the Nordic countries, relevant departments of universities (including sociology, social medicine and social work) as well as social welfare offices at central level in the capital cities and at a local level in the cities in Sweden. The recipients of the questionnaire were requested to also list other authorities and institutions who at the same time were carrying out or had carried out projects or research on the subject.

Results

Over 100 questionnaires were responded to and 12 responses were recieved from referrals. More than half of the responses came from within Sweden. Finland, Norway and Denmark had a resonse rate of 30-40%. Projects reported by authorities were carried out mainly by social welfare offices. The projects were directed mainly at unemployed people, youths, mentally-ill, welfare recipients and substance abusers. The research projects dealt with both the risk of social exclusion and the consequences arising from social exclusion. Much of the work was the result of collaborating projects, involving collaboration between different sectors, some of whom focused on method development for work done among the socially excluded/ disadvantaged. A few of the research projects were intervention studies or involved an action-oriented perspective.

Conclusions

Mapping out current work and studies can be a meaningsful addition to literature searching in data-bases. In literature searches current work in the subject are rarely found. One of the setbacks is that there are no existing Nordic data bases which continually follow-up and document on-going and completed projects.

Keywords

Health Promotion Policy, Inequity

 

Contact

Unge Cecilia

Institution

Karolinska Institutet (KI), Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Social medicine

Postaddress

Norrbacka

Postcode

SE-171 76

City

Stockholm

Country

Sweden

E-mail

cecilia.unge@socmed.sll.se

Phone

+ 46 8 517 779 57

Fax

+ 46 8 33 46 93