Who
joined the debate What Londoners said How
the results will be used Who we are Media Smoking
FAQs Further information The London Health Commission invited Londoners to voice their opinions on smoking in public places by organising the Big Smoke Debate. This involved a publicity campaign that offered two ways to register their opinions: via the www.thebigsmokedebate.com website and by calling a freephone telephone line, advertised in the December issue of The Londoner, the Mayor's newspaper, which is sent free of charge to every household in London.
The campaign involved paid advertising in the London Evening Standard, Time Out, local newspapers and extensive media coverage on television and radio and in newspapers.
Every Primary Care Trust and Stop Smoking Service in London also received promotional materials to distribute to health centres.
The consultation was conducted between 28 October and 31 December 2003.
The survey asked respondents what they felt about smoking in a variety of public places. It also asked respondents questions about their backgrounds - whether they lived or worked in London, their age, sex, ethnicity and whether they smoked.
All available means were used to ensure that the on-line survey was conducted as rigorously as possible. Special arrangements were put in place to protect the website from individuals and organisations wishing to unfairly influence the survey's findings. These included identifying those respondents from outside London and removing multiple submissions.
All responses to the survey were analysed independently on behalf of the London Health Commission by the research company MORI.
