Religion, spirituality and belief: Key references and evidence
ScotPHO's purpose is to describe the pattern of health across the Scottish population. As a supplementary service to users, we include the following links to external sources of quality-assured evidence on effectiveness of interventions which may include relevant material for this topic. These links are provided as an aid to users. They are by no means exhaustive, nor should they be necessarily viewed as authoritative.
Key reports/policy
The Scottish Government published a High Level Summary of Equality Statistics: Key Trends for Scotland (2006). This includes a range of high-level statistics across a number of equality dimensions including age, disability, ethnicity, gender and in some cases religion.
Scottish Government. Religion and belief evidence review (2013).
Scottish Government. Characteristics of recent and established EEA and non-EEA migrants in Scotland Analysis of the 2011 Census (2015).
Scottish Government. Equally Well - Our approach to tackling inequalities (514kB) (2010). This uses Antonovsky’s sense of coherence theory to underpin the Scottish approach to health inequalities.
Scottish Government. Analysis of Equality Results from the 2011 Census (part 2) (2015).
Scottish Government. Analysis of Religion in the 2001 Census (2005).
Scottish Government. Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2010: Attitudes to Discrimination and Positive Action. (2011).
Scottish Government. Scottish Health Survey Topic Report on Equality Groups (2012).
Scottish Government Statistician group. Overview of Equality results from the 2011 Census Release 2 (5.9MB) (2014).
Scottish Government. Scotland’s Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025. (2023).
Scottish Inter Faith Council. Religion and Belief Matter. An Information Resource for Healthcare Staff (3.2MB) (2007).
NHS Education for Scotland. Spiritual Care Matters: An introductory guide for NHS staff (2.0MB) (2009).
Other links
Public Health Scotland: Reducing Health Inequalities
Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
Cochrane Library: Browse by topic
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Guidance
Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN)
Please note: ScotPHO is not responsible for the content or reliability of linked websites and does not necessarily endorse the views expressed within them. Listing should not be taken as endorsement of any kind. ScotPHO can take no responsibility for information contained on websites maintained by other organisations or for actions taken as a result of information contained on websites maintained by other organisations.
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