The Scotland In Lockdown project explored how lockdown impacts on people in Scotland who may already have been isolated or excluded prior to the pandemic. It aimed to help inform Government efforts to prevent further hardship and inequalities.
There were four study areas, focusing on experiences of:
- Refugee and asylum processes or facing destitution
- Domestic abuse or sexual violence
- Disability or long-term health conditions
- Criminal justice control (in prison or community supervised)
This research was conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Glasgow led by Professor Sarah Armstrong of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research and Dr Lucy Pickering of the Institute of Health and Wellbeing. It involved a large research team of 25 including 18 investigators and six PhD and postdoctoral research assistants. It was funded by the Chief Scientist Office and the Scottish Government.
Findings
The key findings across all the four study areas were:
- Information serves as a gatekeeper to people’s ability to navigate the risks of COVID-19 as well as a mediator for how people think or feel about these risks.
- Experiences varied but a shared theme was of lives of both continuity of pre-existing hardship, and change in terms of intensifying challenge through growing constraint of already circumscribed lives.
- Services were stopped, slowed, or contracted, despite need expanding and intensifying.
Scotland in Lockdown has published a project report, an executive summary and findings for each study area.
See the findings on the Scotland in Lockdown website
Addtional resources
Policy Scotland is supporting a wide range of researchers and organisations to share urgently-needed insights into public policy needs arising from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
See Policy Scotland’s COVID-19 research and resources
Image credit: © Scotland in Lockdown
