Rozmiary i dystrybucja spożycia alkoholu w Polsce. Oceny oparte na badaniu na próbie udziałowej i losowej

The Problem Statement The main goals of the alcohol consumption surveys, repeatedly carried out Poland, are to describe the changes in the drinking subcultures of different segments of the population, to monitor the emergence of new drinking practices and the discontinuance of old ones, and to record the evolution of attitudes toward alcohol. In order to facilitate the analysis of these and related phenomena, similar instruments were used and applied in a consistent manner in several of the consecutive surveys. Any substantial change in the formulation of the questions asked or in the manner they are presented to the respondents (e.g. a mailed questionnaire versus a personal interview), raises a number of problems regarding the interpretation of the results obtained. Should the changes observed be treated as reflecting the transformations of the processes studied, or should they be attributed to alterations in the way the respondents were approached? On the other hand, repeated use of the same questionnaire applied in exactly the same manner does not seem to be an attractive proposition, since new problems and interests emerge and new survey research methods are being developed. In the Polish alcohol consumption surveys an attempt has been made to find a balance between securing continuity and introducing change. However, sometimes changes have to be made irrespectively of the researcher’s wishes. They may stem from resources constraints forcing the researcher to adopt a cheaper or less time consuming method of conducting a survey, or from some other reasons. In the case of the Polish alcohol consumption surveys such an external change occurred recently in relation to the sample design. Nine surveys have been conducted in Poland since 1961. Five of these surveys have utilized quota samples, while in four, random samples were employed. However, the studies based on random samples, for the most part, are not representative of the majority of Polish research on drinking practices. Instead, three of the four surveys based on random samples are unique in that they were devoted to an examination of the following issues: meaning attached by the general public to the notion of abstinence; estimation of the content and influence exercised by the antialcohol propaganda; and the effectiveness of the appeals by the Roman Catholic church to abstain from drinking alcoholic beverages during the month of August in the last 3 years. The studies based on quota samples are much more representative of Polish surveys on drinking practices. In these studies, the primary focus has been on the description and nature of drinking occasions. For example, this was the focus in the pioneering surveys by A. Swiecicki carried out in 1961 and 1962, in J. K. Falewicz’s survey of 1968, and in the Polish Alcohol Consumption Surveys of 1980 and 1985. In all of these surveys the same way of measuring alcohol consumption was adopted and their results were analyzed according to the same methodology. The data collection was done by the Center for Public Opinion Survey and Program Studies of the State Committee for Radio and TV in Warsaw for all the surveys. However, in recent years, this Center has been increasingly using random samples of the population in its research, first restricting and more recently abandoning completely the use of quota samples. From now on, the new Polish alcohol consumption surveys will be conducted on random samples only. While the shift to the use of random samples of the population represents a methodological step forward, it raises some important questions. Perhaps most important is whether results from these new surveys will be comparable with results from former surveys? The study reported in this paper is aimed at providing an answer to this question. In the case of a random sample, at least initially, every object in the population has to have an equal probability of being drawn, and at least the first step in the sampling procedure has to be taken randomly. In a quota sample, on the other hand, the usual procedure is that the interviewer has to interview a specified number of subjects with predetermined characteristics (e.g. men; 20‒29 years old; having primary educaiion only; etc.) How the interviewer finds these persons is left to his ingenuity, and even if he does not select them by applying any krown criteria, he is not drawing his part of the sample randomly. If all the interviewers follow exactly the instructions in selecting interviewees, the distribution of the characteristics of the quota sample should be the same as in the general population. It is hoped, but only hoped, that it will secure the representativeness of the sample. To what extent is this hope fulfilled cannot be determined. The Sample In September 1985 the data for the second Polish Alcohol Consumption Survey were collected on a quota sample (QS). Four weeks later, in October 1985, some items from the questionnaire used in that survey were added to a routinely conducted public opinion poll carried out on a random sample (RS). The sizes of the samples were 1808 and 882, respectively. In both cases the field work was done by the Center for Public Opinion Survey. The samples were comparable to one another in terms of the respondents’ occupation, sex, level of education, and proportion of people living in urban and rural areas. However, both samples differed from the general population with respect to age. In the QS, persons aged 60 and older were underrepresented (by about 12%), while those aged 40‒59 were overrepresented (again by about 12%). Within the RS, those aged l6‒19 were underrepresented (by about 6%). The former discrepancy must have originated from the interviewers’ not foliowing closely enough the instructions given to them as to the age of persons they had to interview. The latter discrepancy stemmed from the sampling procedure; the RS was derived from the 1984 election lists, which covered the population of 18 years old and over. One year later, in 1985, these lists included only persons aged 19 and older. The differences in the age structure in the QS, RS, and in the general population are of some significance for estimations of tne coverage rate and for comparability of the samples, and thus will be further discussed later on in the paper. Frequenct and Quantity In the Polish Alcohol Consumption Surveys, as in previous Polish research, the level of consumption has been estimated by means of the last occasion approach. In order to make such estimates a number of assumptions have to be accepted. They are related to the typicality of the occasion described by the respondent in terms of kind of occasion, amount of alcohol consumed, etc. Additionally, some assumptions regarding the frequency of drinking also have to be accepted. These requirements may seem unrealistically far going. However, two points have to be considered. Firstly, the more typical an occasion of drinking is ‒ the more likely, it is to be reported to the interviewer. Secondly, in epidemiological research the interest is on categories or types of respondents and not on a single individual; in groups of respondents, unconventional occasions tend, at least in part, to annul their impact on the means and other measures describing the drinking modalities. The variables used in the Polish Alcohol Consumption Surveys to establish the drinking patterns were: kind of beverage, quantity consumed, and frequency of drinking. There were no differences between the QS and the RS in respect to the frequency of drinking wine purchased in stores as well as home made fruit wine. However, there were some differences in the case of spirit and beer. In the RS, two categories of spirit drinkers could be recognized more distinctly than in the QS; infrequent (i.e. drinking spirits less often than once a month), and very frequent (i.e. several times a week). The former category consisted of 45,5 per cent (QS) and 48,1 per cent (RS), respectively, and the latter of 21,3 per cent (QS) and 30,0 per cent (RS). In the case of beer consumers, there were significantly more infrequent drinkers in the RS than in the QS (48,6 and 34,9 per cent, respectively), and fewer very frequent drinkers (38,5 and 32,5 per cent, respictively). Significantly higher quantities consumed on one occasion were reported in the QS than in the RS, irrespectively of beverage. This would suggest that the interviewers collecting data for the QS tended, possibly without even realizing it, to select prospective respondents from among persons consuming more alcohol than average. The Beverages One of the consequences of the above differences in regard to the frequency of drinking and quantities of alcohol consumed is the overestimation of the concentration of consumption in research based on QSs. The concentration of consumption is traditionally used to refer to the size of proportion of consumers who drink about half of all alcohol consumed. According to an estimate derived from the RS in 1985 in Poland, half of spirits were consumed by about 10 per cent of drinkers (rather than by 7 per cent as indicated by the QS), and of wine purchased ‒ by 8 per cent of drinkers (rather than by 7 per cent); in the case of drinkers of home made wine (5 per cent), and of beer (10 per cent) the estimates of concentration of consumption proved to be the same in the QS and in the RS. The shrinking of the coverage rate was another consequence of the overestimation of the quantities of alcohol consumed of the frequency of drinking of some alcoholic beverages. The comparison of the amount of alcoholic beverages sold during 1985 in the country with the amount accounted for by the surveys, reveals the following picture: QS RS spirits

Chromatography · Econometrics · Geography · Interview · Political science · Population · Sample (material · Sociology · Statistics · Chemistry · Demography · Mathematics · Nutrition and Health Studies

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