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1.2 Overview of major Australian data sets

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Several series of surveys investigating adult smoking behaviour in Australia have been undertaken in recent decades, providing a wealth of information. The most comprehensive are:

  • the National Health Surveys, conducted approximately five-yearly by the Australian Bureau of Statistics with the first including routine questions on smoking behaviour undertaken in 1989–9011-14
  • the National Drug Strategy Household Surveys, undertaken by the National Drug Strategy (formerly the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse), commencing in 1985 and conducted every two to three years15-21
  • surveys undertaken by research groups under the auspices of the Cancer Council Victoria (TCCV, formerly the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria) at three-yearly intervals, from 1974 to 1998.9, 10, 22-29 The Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer (CBRC), a unit within TCCV, has extended this set with data from National Drug Strategy Household Surveys (NDSHS), which since 2001 have assessed smoking status using a methodology considered sufficiently similar to that of TCCV30 to extend the trendlines.29 Additional analysis[2] has produced the most consistently collected and detailed trends data available for Australia, spanning the years from 1980 to 2004. Preliminary data from the 2007 NDSHS became available for external use just prior to publication. Preliminary estimates for prevalence of smoking by sex and age groups from this survey are therefore also reported here, but estimates for other variables are not yet available for 2007.
  • the National Tobacco Campaign Evaluation surveys, which measured prevalence between 1997–2004, predominantly reporting on a sample aged 18–40 which formed the primary target for the campaign.31

Discussion in this chapter will draw on these and other sources, but most analysis is based on the new data series generated by the CBRC (as described in the Notes on Methodology ). Changes in the volume of tobacco consumed are discussed in Chapter 2 .

[2] Data on adult prevalence presented in this chapter originate from new, previously unpublished analyses undertaken by the Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, within the Cancer Council Victoria. Prevalence data for 1980–2001 have been re-analysed and extended, excluding individuals aged below 18 and weighting the data sets to 2001 census data based on five standard categories of age and sex. Information presented here therefore differs slightly from that published in prior journal articles describing Australian adult prevalence of smoking from 1980–2001.22–29 Survey data for 2001, 2004 and where it is available, for 2007, are taken from the National Drug Strategy Household Surveys, undertaken by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and analysed by the CBRC. The source files used are listed in the following Notes on Methodology.

Notes on methodology: TCCV data were collected as part of an omnibus survey conducted by the same national market research company in each survey year. A random sample of households across Australia was selected for surveying and interviewers conducted face to face surveys with respondents aged 14+ in their home. The original analyses of data from these surveys were based on data from respondents aged 16 and over. The NDSHS is also a survey of a random sample of men and women across Australia, with respondents aged 14+. A market research company has conducted the field work for the study and collected the data using three methods: (a) face to face household interviews; (b) drop and collect questionnaires (interviewer contacts household, identifies respondent, and leaves a questionnaire for them to complete by themselves); and (c) computer assisted telephone interviews. Only data collected by the first two methods are used here as these data collection methods most closely matched those used for TCCV surveys. Data from the NDSHS have also been re-analysed to include responses only from individuals 18 and over, using the following source files:

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. National Drug Strategy Household Survey, 2001 [computer file]. Canberra: Australian Social Science Data Archive, The Australian National University; 2001.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. National Drug Strategy Household Survey, 2004, [computer file]. Canberra: Australian Social Science Data Archives, The Australian National University; 2005.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2007: First Results. [Computer File]. Canberra: Australian Social Science Data Archive, The Australian National University; 2008.

The two surveys use different questions to define "current" smoking. In TCCV surveys, the question for assessing smoking status (which remained unchanged for the duration of the survey period) asked respondents to classify themselves as a current smoker of cigarettes or cigars or pipes, an ex-smoker of any tobacco product, or a never smoker. In the NDSHS surveys, smoking status is ascertained by asking respondents if they have ever tried a cigarette or smoked a full cigarette, and then enquiring of respondents who say "yes", whether they have smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime. Respondents indicating that they have smoked more than 100 cigarettes are asked: "How often do you now smoke cigarettes, pipes, or other tobacco products?" and are asked to select one of the following responses: "daily"; "at least weekly"; "less often than weekly"; "not at all but I have smoked in the past 12 months", or "not at all and I have not smoked in the past 12 months". Respondents indicating that they smoke "daily" or "at least weekly" are classified as current smokers. A calibration study30 of the two different approaches has found that they produced the same estimates of smoking prevalence, indicating that these data sets can reasonably be combined to analyse trends.

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