What does prevention look like for your organisation?

This article was featured in the SCDC Weekly - 12th August 2026

A new article from Community Food and Health Scotland (part of Public Health Scotland) has outlined the ways community food organisations take preventative approaches in their work. 

Preventative approaches involve identifying and tackling root causes before negative outcomes occur, and play a critical role in tackling Scotland's growing health inequalities crisis.

The blog highlights build on work from Evaluation Support Scotland asking: 'How do we measure something that hasn’t happened?’. Using the example of a community cafe, prevention could be seen in action via the short term outcome of access to more nutritious food leading to longer-term outcomes around people in the community having more varied diets and experiencing less social isolation.

"Focusing on how your work contributes to outcomes rather than trying to prove direct causation makes evaluation more realistic and manageable,” the article notes.

New policy drivers, including the Public Service Reform Strategy, the Population Health Framework, and the Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework clearly set out the national direction around prevention, although more focus is needed on the ‘hard-to-do’ parts of policy implementation. 

For these ways of working to take root, the role of community-led organisations must be recognised, with long-term investment and financial decision-making focused on properly supporting preventative approaches in our communities across Scotland.