What Works in Community Profiling? Reflections from West Dunbartonshire

This joint WWS/GCPH paper discusses the experience of What Works Scotland, the Glasgow Centre for Population Health and the West Dunbartonshire Community Planning Team in developing community profiles for the purposes of place-based working and locality planning.  The paper outlines key learning points from the work. 

Community profiling is an example of an evidence-informed approach to place-based working but is one that presents shared challenges of data availability for small geographical areas, useable tools and sustainability in relation to the skills and capacity of local staff. 

This project has demonstrated the need for a deeper understanding of how, in practice, data profiles and local research could be more meaningful and useful for community planning partners and communities. Moving beyond the production of profiles, we hope to use the next phase of this project to examine how profiles and local research can help community planning partners and communities to identify local priorities and take action.