The Harmony team is working on Harmony Discovery, which will allow social scientists to find datasets about Gambling Behaviour across data platforms. Harmony Discovery is due in 2025 and will extend the functionality of Harmony.
Gambling, while a common recreational activity, can sometimes intensify into a compulsive problem, leading to significant negative effects on individuals and society. Researchers and policy makers continuously grapple with understanding and defining effective interventions for problem gambling. To do this, they need access to quality datasets on gambling behaviour, and that is where the Harmony Discovery tool becomes a game-changer.
Harmony Discovery is a powerful data discovery engine specifically developed to help researchers discover rich and layered datasets in the realm of social sciences, including that of gambling behaviour. With Harmony, researchers can access datasets sourced from prominent repositories, such as UKLLC, Closer, the Catalogue of Mental Health Measures, HDR UK, and ADR UK, among others.
To give you an idea of what Harmony has on offer, here are a few gambling-related datasets available for researchers:
Gaming and Betting Study: Survey of Loyalty Card Customers, Waves 1 and 2, 2014-2016: Conducted by the Responsible Gambling Trust, this programme dives into the patterns of play visible in machines in bookmakers.
Gambling and Households: New Gambling Directive at Mass Observation Archive: This research effort presents a socio-cultural analysis of gambling and family life in the UK.
The datasets provided by Harmony also carry the benefit of longitudinal studies—repeated observations of the same subjects—allowing well-nuanced observations of change at an individual level over a length of time.
Harmony Discovery goes a step further by utilising large language models to match questionnaire items and variable names, smoothing out the process of sourcing relevant datasets.
In conclusion, Harmony Discovery equips researchers with robust, diverse, and quality longitudinal datasets on gambling behaviour, helping them stay ahead in their quest to understand and address problem gambling. This is data discovery reinvented!
