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The purpose of this study is to identify correlates of tobacco smoking behaviour across various socio-demographic segments of the Australian population.

Data from two nationally representative, probability samples of persons 18 and over, surveyed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2001 and 2017–2018 were analysed using multinomial logistic regression.

Overall, the prevalence of current smokers declined from 24.3 to 15%. More than half of the population had never smoked. The prevalence of ex-smokers increased slightly to 30%. Prevalence of current smoking was higher among older age groups and among those with lower educational achievement, lower income, living in a disadvantaged area and experiencing increasing stress. Females were more likely than males to be never-smokers. Males were more likely than females to be current smokers.

The findings are based on two cross-sectional surveys conducted 17 years apart. It is not possible to draw any conclusions about the actual trajectories of the changes in the values reported or any correlations between those trajectories. Nor is it possible to make any meaningful forecasts about likely future trends in smoking status in these various segments based on these data sets. The classifications used in the surveys generate some heterogeneous groups, which can obscure important differences among respondents within groups. Data are all self-reported, and there is no validation of the self-reported smoking status. This might lead to under-reporting, especially in a community where tobacco smoking is no longer a majority or even a popular habit. Because the surveys are so large, virtually, all the findings are statistically significant. However, the increasing preponderance of never-smokers in many categories might mean that never-smokers could come to dominate the data.

The findings from this paper will help tobacco-control policy-makers to augment whole-of-community initiatives with individual campaigns designed to be more effective with particular socio-demographic segments. They will also assist in ensuring better alignment between initiatives addressing mental health and tobacco smoking problems facing the community.

The examination of smoking behaviour among individual population sub-groups, chosen by the authors, is commonplace in the literature. This paper uses data from two large surveys to model the whole, heterogeneous population, measured at two different points in time.

The Delphi method is well suited to the research needed to inform health education and health promotion campaigns. This paper measures the current interest in the method by way of a literature review. It then describes how the method has evolved from its inception in the 1950s, to its current form. The focus is on a Delphi variant that is particularly relevant to health education – the Policy Delphi. The benefits of the method for the developer of health education and health promotion campaigns are then discussed. The main benefits relate to the gaining of expert opinions without the time and geographical restraints involved in alternative methods. The anonymity that is central to the Delphi method also has benefits for the researcher. The last section of the paper deals with potential pitfalls in the Delphi method that might undermine the successful application of the method, and recommends steps the practitioner can take to address these pitfalls.

Tobacco smoking will kill literally millions of people annually around the world. Despite this fact, prevalence among young people remains unacceptably high. Because tobacco is so addictive, the typical adolescent smoker can look forward to a lifetime addiction, reduced quality of life and premature death. A long‐term solution to this problem must include action to postpone or inhibit adolescents from taking up smoking. Advertising research indicates that a message is more effective if the target audience experiences a feeling of involvement in it. It must also communicate new, important information that engages the audience at a cognitive and affective level and is readily verifiable against the audience’s own experience. It follows that the threat of addiction should be used as the key message in a campaign to reduce the incidence of adolescent cigarette smoking. This threat is potentially salient for adolescents. It is concrete and immediate, not merely a promise of increased statistical probabilities 30 or more years into the future. It is also readily verifiable from the adolescent’s own experience. It may also be worth focusing on other consequent losses that flow from the addiction.

The purpose of this paper is to show how health education is a strategy used to achieve the objective of maintenance and improvement in the community's welfare.

The paper addresses two issues: are health educators attacking the right targets, and are the strategies being developed to attack those targets the right strategies?

Health education will make the most efficient contribution to long‐term improvement in communities' welfare when it attacks the right targets.

Shows how the strategies used to attack the right targets will be based on the best research available and will involve broader consultation with other disciplines.

Despite widespread anti‐smoking campaigns, prevalence and the consequent damage to the community remains high and are therefore of concern to health educators. Several studies have identified a clear socio‐economic status gradient in smoking prevalence. One purpose of this paper is to re‐examine this gradient to assist in the more accurate targeting of anti‐smoking campaigns. Another purpose of this paper is to examine the financial cost of smoking from a household perspective and also to compare survey data with data compiled by other means to test whether smokers are accurately reporting their smoking behaviour. This can assist in the refining of anti‐smoking message strategies.

Data from a large‐scale survey of Australian households – the Household Expenditure Survey – was analysed and compared with data from other sources to examine demographic correlates and self‐reported estimates of smoking behaviour.

Approximately one third of households reported expenditure on tobacco. Expenditure is more prevalent among households with a female head and among lower status occupations. Young people are continuing to take up smoking. Smoking households appear to underestimate their expenditure on tobacco by more than 40 percent.

Data are drawn from households, not individuals; therefore exact estimations of smoking prevalence and individual smoking behaviour are not possible.

The findings provide important guidance for health educators developing anti‐smoking campaigns. The findings provide assistance in the development of targeting and message strategy guidelines.

The intention of this paper is to encourage debate among ethical researchers on this very important issue. Research necessary to underpin health education and health promotion is often controversial and often involves vulnerable populations such as young people and children. It is essential that the rights of these respondents are protected in every research project. Current research ethical approval processes aim to protect these rights but have the potential to undermine the viability of research projects in this area. This paper addresses two ethical issues associated with this research: the approval process and respondent consent.

The paper looks at the codified antecedents of common ethical guidelines and discusses their application in a particular but not unusual health education research project.

The paper recommends the adoption of a simplified approval process and greater appreciation of the merits of researching among students in a classroom setting, when these students are an appropriate target market.

Much health education research falls between medical research and marketing research. Guidelines for this sort of research need to be developed through discussion among practitioners and academics in the field.

Adoption of this simplified approach will facilitate more important research being undertaken without jeopardizing the rights or the welfare of the vulnerable respondents involved.

The purpose of this paper is to argue for the importance of separating out three key dimensions of culture’s value – definition, measurement and cultural reporting. This has implications for the balance between quantitative and qualitative methodologies in achieving a meaningful context for interpreting numbers-based cultural data, as well as for the management of reporting regimes – the process by which value is “conferred” – by individual cultural organisations and events. It concludes with a brief sketch of a new set of priorities for assessment processes based on a less unitized, more cooperative understanding of cultural value (a Total Cultural Value exercise)

This paper is a keynote address from the Global Events Congress.

Valuation processes are comparative processes. They involve benchmarking, standardisation, unitisation and ranking. Cultural activities have an incommensurable aspect that makes them resist this kind of assessment and not infrequently make a nonsense of it. This makes it difficult for policy makers to choose between them from a resource perspective. No new proof of worth is going to change this fundamental characteristic of culture. A Total Cultural Value exercise is “allocutionary” and helps cultural programmes “make a case” based on best use of the available data and a meta-cognitive appreciation of the biases different proofs of worth involve.

Total Cultural Value is a new concept developed to bring quantitative and qualitative methods for valuing arts and culture together

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