The prevalence rates of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs use are matters of concern to public policy in most countries, since they are important factors related to the health and welfare of the population. Systematic information on alcohol and drug use prevalence rates is usually collected with epidemiological surveys. In several countries large-scale series of school surveys on alcohol and other drugs use are being conducted among students. Despite this, it might be difficult to do cross-national comparisons due to differences in methodology, especially regarding the data collection instrument (the questionnaire).

For this reason, a school survey expert group was formed in the mid-1980s within the Pompidou Group at the Council of Europe. Their task was to develop a standard questionnaire that could be used by countries that wanted to perform national school surveys resulting in comparable data.

In the early 1990s, Björn Hibell and Barbro Andersson at the Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN) initiated a collaborative project by contacting a number of European researchers to explore the possibilities of doing simultaneously performed school surveys with a common methodology. The project was planned to build on the experiences of the Pompidou school survey group. The Pompidou Group made funds available to support the participation of researchers from the former Eastern Europe countries in a first Project meeting.

In March 1994 representatives from 21 countries met at the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, for the first project meeting. Methodological aspects as well as the questionnaire were thoroughly discussed. Questions and details remaining unsolved after the meeting were handled by a working group.

So far four data collections and tenProject meetings have been held since the initiation of the project. The first data collection was carried out in 1995, the second in 1999, the third in 2003 and the fourth data in 2007. An additional data collection was carried out spring 2008 in seven new countries (and also in FYROM who participated in 2003).

CAN remains the coordinator of the ESPAD-project and are responsible for the publication of the international reports.

The Pompidou Group has continued to financially support the ESPAD-project. Throughout the years support has also been given by the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs while the Swedish National Institute of Public Health has covered some of the printing costs. Since 2006 economical support has also been provided by the EMCDDA. Data collections in individual countries are funded by national sources.

Copyright

The name of ESPAD as well as the ESPAD questionnaires are copyrighted, which should not prevent researchers from using questions in the ESPAD questionnaire or using ideas from the ESPAD methodology. However, if a researcher wants to use a large part of a questionnaire he/she should ask the coordinators for permission. It is under no circumstances allowed for a researcher to call him/herself an ESPAD researcher if the person is not appointed by ESPAD. It is also forbidden to use the name of ESPAD in relation to a survey, for example by calling a survey “An ESPAD survey”, “ESPAD related survey” or something similar. When the ESPAD questionnaire or the ESPAD Project plan is used to any important extent a researcher should always contact the coordinators for further discussions.

More information on the project is available in the document ESPAD Project History.