Research and Practice of Health Promotion, Volume 07: Standardisation of Questions on Smoking

A fundamental problem in the assessment of the results of evaluations of programmes, models and campaigns for prevention and health promotion is the absence of standardisation of the evaluation instruments and procedures applied. Consequently, the results of evaluation studies are comparable to only a limited extent, if at all, since different questions are used. Assessments of trends in different areas of health-related behaviour have, to date, been possible only if surveys are used from an institution which has not altered its survey methods over the years.

Against this backdrop, a joint project with the BZGA was commenced with the aim of analysing the comprehensive existing experience gained from evaluation studies. The objective was to formulate recommendations as to which questions and methods of evaluation are to be used in the future in various spheres of action in health promotion. The present English version is an abridged form of the German report. The entire materials section with the original questions has been omitted. Redundancies have been eliminated, in particular, in the present text, and the number of examples of individual types of question has been reduced.