Data from: Effects of a systematically offered social and preventive medicine consultation on training and health attitudes of young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs): an interventional study in France

Background NEETs (young people not in employment, education or training)
are at higher risk for poorer mental and physical health. In France, the
Missions locales (MLs) are the only social structures dedicated to this
population. We sought to determine whether the systematic offer of a
social and preventive medicine consultation at a ML might increase NEET
participants’ access to training in the 12 months following the
intervention. Methods This intervention research was a parallel randomised
controlled interventional study conducted at five MLs in mainland France
in 2011-2012. It included 976 NEETs aged 18 to 25 years who attended one
of the five MLs. At inclusion, participants were randomly assigned (1:1:1)
to three groups: those in the first group were invited to see a social
worker (not studied in this paper), those in the second group were invited
to see a doctor and a social worker (intervention group), and the third
was a control group. The primary outcome was participation in at least one
training session during the year following study inclusion. Results Among
the 976 participants, 504 were randomly assigned to the intervention group
and 472 to the control group; 704 (72.1%) were included in the analyses. A
significantly higher proportion of the participants in the intervention
group participated in a training session in the 12 months following the
intervention than of those in the control group (63.3% vs 55.6%; p=0.04).
This difference was significantly greater for women, those less than 21
years of age, those unstably housed and those with a lower level of
education. Conclusions Social and preventive medicine consultations that
are fully integrated into the social services for NEETs have an impact on
their access to training and contribute to changing some of their
health-related behaviours. This may improve their access to the labour
market.