Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.In 1989, the Health Education Authority (HEA) launched its Teenage Smoking Campaign, which aimed to discourage young people from taking up smoking and to encourage existing smokers to stop. The HEA commissioned eight tracking surveys of children's attitudes to smoking between 1989 and 1994 to evaluate their campaign. In 1996, the Department of Health launched a new campaign - <i>Respect</i>. The <i>Respect</i> campaign seeks to address the reasons why young people start to smoke and to destabilise the fashionable perceptions of smoking. It seeks to make non-smoking part of a positive lifestyle which is relevant for both smokers and non-smokers. The 1996 Teenage Smoking Attitudes (TSA) survey, the first in a series of three annual surveys, was designed to help evaluate the campaign and look more generally at children's attitudes and beliefs about smoking and their knowledge of health issues. Two further surveys were carried out in 1997 and 1998. Since 1982, the Social Survey Division of ONS has also carried out a biennial series of surveys of smoking among secondary school children for the Department of Health (the 'Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use Among Young Teenagers' series (formerly 'Smoking Among Secondary Schoolchildren', held at the Archive under GN:33263). Since these surveys and the Teenage Smoking Attitudes surveys target the same population of 11-15 year olds in England, the HEA and the Department of Health decided to investigate whether it was possible to make the two surveys complementary to each other. Further to these investigations, the same sampling design was then used on both surveys, and they contained a group of the same core questions. The two surveys, however, have maintained different focuses. The Department of Health surveys remain the official source of smoking prevalence data for 11-15 year olds, whereas the emphasis of the HEA surveys was on finding out what people believe about smoking, their attitudes to smoking and their awareness of health education issues.
The 1996 Teenage Smoking Attitudes (TSA) survey was the first of three annual surveys. It was designed to help evaluate the <i>Respect</i> campaign and look more generally at children's attitudes and beliefs about smoking and their knowledge of health issues.
Main Topics:
For the 1996 survey, four groups of core questions were the same as those on the 1996 Smoking Among Secondary Schoolchildren survey (held at the Archive under SN:4124). These were used to classify pupils' smoking behaviour and that of their family, and educational and social factors which might be related to their smoking behaviour. The Teenage Smoking Attitudes questionnaire also collected information on pupils' perception of smoking risks, their views about, and experiences of, trying to give up smoking, their awareness of cigarette advertising and sponsorship, and any sources of health education they recalled. Pupils were also asked a few questions about the new <i>Respect</i> campaign. The variables in the dataset represent the questions asked, a number of derived variables and some school level data (attached to each case).
Multi-stage stratified random sample
Self-completion
Clinical measurements
