Scottish Health Survey: content review outcomes report

Smoking

There was strong support for retaining the existing smoking questions with ASH Scotland proposing small adjustments to the smoking cessation and passive smoking questions. 

Based on suggestions from ASH Scotland, from 2024 we are asking the smoking cessation support question of all adults who have quit smoking, not just those who have used any NRT products. We have also added a new option of ‘stop smoking apps’ to the smoking cessation support question which then asks for the name of the app if any are used.

Based on ASH Scotland’s suggestion to add a question about exposure to vapour to the second-hand smoking question, we added a separate additional question, using the same wording as the second-hand smoking question but with additional response option to reflect that it is not illegal to vape indoors, so we can monitor exposure to smoke and vapour separately. We also added new response options to the second-hand smoke question to include smoke drifting into the home from communal spaces or neighbouring properties.

Before the 2025 survey questionnaire was finalised, we received a request from policy colleagues in the tobacco, gambling, diet and healthy weight team regarding an emerging need to monitor the use of heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches, as set out in the Tobacco and vaping framework, roadmap to 2034. After discussions with our contractors we agreed to incorporate heated tobacco products into an existing question about the type of tobacco products respondents have ever used and to include a new question, used in an ASH Scotland survey, regarding use of nicotine pouches. To allow space for this additional question, we removed the questions asking if exposure to second-hand smoke and vapour bothers the respondent. These questions did not receive any specific support during the content review and tobacco policy colleagues noted that they are unaware of this data being used. For the full smoking module see annex 12.