This survey series charts Finnish alcohol consumption, concentrating on consumption not recorded in statistics. The surveys investigate the use of home-made, smuggled, and privately imported alcoholic beverages, and the use of pure alcohol. At first, the surveys were carried out by the Social Research Institute of Alcohol Studies, which was annexed to the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES) (nowadays the National Institute for Health and Welfare ) in 1996. The FSD collections cover data from 1995 to 2002.
The survey charted the extent of unrecorded alcohol consumption and production in Finland. First, the respondents were asked how often they drank alcohol and how often they had consumed pure alcohol or home-made alcohol, such as moonshine or home-brewed beer in the previous 12 months. Those who had produced alcohol themselves were asked to state the amount (in litres) they had produced in the previous 12 months. Percentage of home-made, smuggled or privately imported alcohol out of all consumed alcohol was studied.
The respondents were asked whether they knew somebody who had smuggled, sold or produced spirits, pure alcohol or moonshine in the previous 12 months, whether someone had offered to sell them and how many litres they had bought in the previous 12 months. The number of trips or cruises abroad was examined. The respondents were asked from how many of these trips they had personally imported alcohol, what kinds of alcoholic products they had brought and how many litres. Finally, the percentage of alcohol originally produced in Finland out of all personally imported alcohol was studied.
Background variables included the respondent's gender, age, basic and vocational education, occupational group, employment status, annual gross income of the household, number of household members, household composition, region and municipality of residence, occupational group of household head, primary and secondary choice of political party if parliamentary elections had been held at the time of the survey, and party choice in the 1996 municipal elections.
At the first stage of the sampling, the number of respondents required by the sample was divided regionally by provinces. At the second stage, the number of respondents within each province was divided according to municipality type. Urban municipalities were grouped into small and large towns according to the number of inhabitants and rural municipalities into three categories based on industrial structure. The choice of municipalities is representative. At the third stage, starting points were randomly selected from each municipality in relation to their population. Interviews were carried out using a starting point method, and each randomly selected point resulted in six interviews. From each household the person who matched the gender and age requirements stated in the selection card was interviewed. The interviewer used two cards: the first one was used to select one 15-39-year-old female and two 15-39-year-old males, and then one male of at least 40 years of age and two females of 40 or older. With the second card one 15-39-year-old male and two 15-39-year-old females, one female who was 40 or older, and two males of at least 40 years of age were selected.