Trends in smoking during pregnancy in England, 1992-7: quota sampling surveys

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Abstract
Seven surveys of pregnant women have been carried out. Two surveys were carried out in 1992 before and immediately after press advertising aimed at reducing smoking in pregnancy. All subsequent surveys followed similar press advertising carried out annually in March. Sample sizes from 1992 to 1997 were 625, 606, 526, 1039, 1002, 1004, and 1018, the increase in later years being made possible by increased funding. Quota sampling was chosen as the most cost effective means of obtaining a representative sample of pregnant women, although it is not as rigorous as probability sampling. Interviewing at home was adopted in preference to contact through, for example, antenatal clinics to prevent bias in the resulting sample. Weighting was applied to ensure that all samples were consistent with the age distribution of live births for each year except the seventh, which was based on data for 1996 as those for 1997 were not available. Full details of sampling and methods are published elsewhere. 3 4

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