The National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES), nowadays called the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) , has been conducting surveys on attitudes towards alcohol control policies in Finland. Survey questions have explored opinons on alcohol retail outlets, alcohol marketing and advertising and age limits for alcohol purchase, etc. Data collection has been carried out by Gallup Finland (currently TSN Gallup Finland). The FSD collections cover data from 1996 to 2004.
The survey studied Finnish public opinion on alcohol control policies.
The respondents were asked how often they drink alcohol. Views were probed on alcohol control measures imposed in Finland and which retail outlets people should be able to buy beer, wine or spirits from. Some questions focused on what would happen to wine prices, wine selection and wine consumption among women and young people if it were possible to buy wine from grocery stores. The respondents were also asked whether they supported or objected to the proposal to allow grocery stores to sell wine. Opinions on the legal age to buy beer, wine and spirits were surveyed. Final questions pertained to beer, spirits and wine price levels.
Background variables included the respondent's gender, age, basic education, vocational education, economic activity and occupational status, employment status, type of municipality, province and region (NUTS2) of residence, annual gross income of the household, number and age of household members, household composition, economic activity and occupational status of household head, and R's primary and secondary choice of political party if the parliamentary elections were held at that time, and choice of party in the 2003 parliamentary elections.
At the first stage of the sampling, the number of respondents required by the sample was divided regionally by province. 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, the number of starting points determined by the population size. From each household the person who matched the gender and age requirements stated in the selection card was interviewed.