Survey of Smoking Attitudes and Behaviour, 1981

<P>Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.</P><br>The Joint Committee on Research into Smoking, set up by the Social Science Research Council and the Medical Research Council, recommended in their Report in 1978 that a new study should be undertaken of attitudes towards smoking, and, in particular, of the relationship between such attitudes and smoking behaviour. The recommendation stressed that the new study should go beyond the conventional range of attitude surveys and probe smokers' motivation in some detail. The Department of Health and Social Security accepted this recommendation and commissioned the Social Survey Division of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys to undertake such a survey. The main aim of this survey was to explore the attitudes and beliefs that determine the intention to smoke or not to smoke and how such intentions might determine subsequent behaviour.<br><B>Main Topics</B>:<BR><br>Attitudinal/Behavioural Questions<br>
Smokers: number of cigarettes/cigars, amount of tobacco smoked daily and weekly, type (tar-level), whether informant knows tar-level, changes in type or number of cigarettes smoked, reasons for changes, experience of giving up or attempting to give up and reasons, degree of dependency, likelihood of trying and succeding in giving up, cutting down, or carrying on smoking, attitudes towards price of cigarettes, amount of money needed to live in comfort, experience of money worries, physical health and confidence assessment, belief in risks to health through smoking, whether most friends and relatives smoke, attitude to medical advice on giving up smoking, to smoking in company of non- smokers or in non-smoking areas.<br>
Ex-smokers: social aspects of giving up smoking (whether alone, whether told others of intention, whether encouraged or not by relatives and friends), degree of difficulty experienced in giving up, length of time of discomfort, whether respondent feels better or worse for giving up, likelihood of smoking again, whether bothered by other people smoking.<br>
All: attitudes towards cigarette advertising and degree of awareness of advertisements.<br>
Background Variables<br>
Weekly income, educational background (electoral register sample only), brand names used by smoking respondents, household composition, employment history and status.