The ISIS International Social Impact Survey is an all-volunteer, multinational survey to assess the social impacts of smoking bans on smokers. Preliminary online testing has suggested that pub/bar bans have a strong impact on a great many smokers, and result in them frequenting them less, having a smaller circle of friends, spending more time at home, and also losing trust in health experts and the mass media. Many smokers also strongly object to smoking bans in care homes (as well as outside hospitals). This resulted in a short questionnaire being drawn up:
The survey will be carried out on foot by volunteer pollsters in the UK, the USA, Canada, Holland, Germany, France, Spain, and Greece, and will be aimed principally at identified smokers (although non-smokers will also be welcome to complete the questionnaire if they wish). The survey will run for 2 – 3 months from June 2012. The data from completed questionnaires will be entered online to a central server, and collated there.
There will also be an online survey running in tandem with the international street survey, which will be asking the same questions. The responses to the two surveys will be kept separately.
Results and analysis will be published online at the Isis website and it is hoped also in the mass media.
There will be periodic news updates as the survey progresses.
