Baseline Surveys: The Health Effects of Tobacco and Health Warning Messages on Cigarette Packages (disponible en anglais seulement)

1.0 Introduction

Environics Research Group Limited was commissioned by Health Canada to conduct surveys of the general population, including adult smokers and non-smokers, and youth. The main objective of the surveys was to create baseline data before the implementation of the new health warning messages on tobacco packaging. The new health warning messages began appearing on the major tobacco brands in the marketplace on approximately January 1, 2001.

The surveys assessed sources of information about the effects of tobacco, awareness and knowledge of the health effects of tobacco, the extent to which specific diseases are believed to be caused by tobacco, the number of deaths caused by smoking and knowledge of toxic substances. The surveys also measured awareness and recall of existing health warning messages and of new health warning messages.

This report summarizes the findings of the research.

The general population survey, which included adult smokers and non-smokers, is based on a sample size of 721 Canadians. This was conducted between November 21 and December 6, 2000. An additional oversample of 781 smokers was conducted to achieve a final sample size of 1,000 adult smokers. This survey was conducted between November 21 and December 19, 2000.

The survey of youth aged 12 to 18, which included youth smokers and non-smokers, is based on a sample size of 1,015. This survey was conducted between December 7 and 23, 2000.

A survey based on a sample of 721 has a margin of error of approximately 3.6 percentage points, 19 times in 20. The corresponding margins for samples of 1,000 and 1,015 are 3.1 percentage points.

In this report, unless otherwise noted, the text and tables report the findings in percentage points.

Appended to this report are copies of the English and French questionnaires and a description of the survey methods.