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 1998 Teenage Smoking Attitudes (TSA) survey was the last of three annual surveys. In particular, the 1998 survey focused on cigarette dependency, giving up smoking and children's awareness of smoking related articles, promotions and advertising in the media. In half the schools sampled, respondents gave saliva specimens which were later analysed for evidence of cotinine - a major metabolite of nicotine. This was carried out in order to estimate the prevalence of smoking. Pupils were made fully aware of the purpose of the procedure. For further details, please see documentation.
Main Topics:
The following questions, first asked in the 1996 and 1997 surveys, were also asked in the 1998 survey: smoking prevalence, age first smoked cigarette, brand of cigarette smoked, giving up smoking, parental smoking behaviour, attitudes towards smoking and smokers, recollection of health education at school and in the media, recollection of smoking related items in the printed media, cigarette company promotions, what teenagers know about cigarettes, social and educational factors. Questions new to the survey for the 1998 wave covered: why first tried smoking and who with, and spare time activities. Each case in the dataset represents a child aged between 11 and 15 years of age. The variables represent the questions asked on the two questionnaires, a number of derived variables and some school-level data (attached to each case).
Multi-stage stratified random sample
Self-completion
Clinical measurements
