Current status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 January 2026
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-42569 by Jenni Minto on 29 December 2025, what the total number of individual respondents from Scotland was to the (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 Action on Smoking and Health Smokefree GB Youth Survey, and whether it considers the number to be sufficiently robust and representative of young people living across the entire spectrum of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) in comparison to the 21,559 S2 and S4 pupils who responded to the Scottish School Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS) in 2018 and 25,411 S2 and S4 pupils who replied to the 2021-22 Health and Wellbeing Census.
The total number of Scottish participants in the ASH SmokeFree GB Youth survey was:
(a) 760 (677 aged 11-17) in 2024
(b) 856 (755 aged 11-17) in 2025
Information on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) is not available for this sample. Data are collected on social grade and grouped into ABC1 and C2DE categories, which are not directly comparable with SIMD. The sample is unlikely to be representative in terms of deprivation as it leans towards higher social grades. The data are not weighted to account for this, and this limitation should be considered when interpreting the results.
The aim of the booster sample is to enable monitoring of progress against key indicators 4(i) and 4(ii) of the Tobacco and Vaping Framework (i.e. smoking and vaping behaviours in children and young people), while balancing cost, analytical value, and timeliness.
Information on the methodology (including sample size) and results for 2024 and 2025 are available on the Scottish Government website (https://www.gov.scot/publications/vaping-smoking-scottish-adolescents/pages/1/;https://www.gov.scot/publications/vaping-smoking-scottish-adolescents-results-ash-smokefree-gb-youth-survey-2025/).