Definitions for the Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey 2018-19
Current smoker
has smoked at least 100 cigarettes in his/her lifetime, and includes the following:
Current daily - a current smoker who has smoked at least one cigarette per day for each of the 30 days preceding the survey.
Current occasional - a current smoker who has smoked at least one cigarette during the past 30 days, but has not smoked every day.
Former smoker
smoked at least 100 cigarettes in his/her lifetime and has not smoked at all during the past 30 days.
Experimental smoker
has smoked at least one whole cigarette, has not smoked 100 or more cigarettes in his/her lifetime and has smoked in the last 30 days.
Former experimental smoker
has smoked at least one whole cigarette, has not smoked 100 or more cigarettes in his/her lifetime and has not smoked at all in the past 30 days.
Past 30 day smoker
has smoked one or more cigarettes in the past 30 days. This category will include current smokers as well as experimental smokers who have tried a cigarette in the past 30 days.
Puffer
someone who has just tried a few puffs of a cigarette, but has never smoked a whole cigarette.
Ever tried a cigarette
someone who has ever tried a cigarette, even a few puffs.
Never tried a cigarette
someone who has never tried a cigarette, not even a few puffs.
E-Cigarettes
are battery-operated devices that mimic the act and taste of smoking cigarettes but do not contain tobacco. E-cigarettes include vaporizers with e-juice, vape pen, tank, or mod and are available with or without nicotine.
Tobacco Products
a product made in whole or in part of tobacco, including tobacco leaves. This includes cigarettes (including menthol and roll-your-own), cigars, little cigars or cigarillos, smokeless tobacco, waterpipe tobacco, and blunt wraps. E-cigarettes are excluded.
Flavoured Tobacco Products
include menthol cigarettes, little cigars or cigarillos, cigars, waterpipe tobacco, blunt wraps, and smokeless tobacco that have artificial flavours added.
Vaporizing (vaping) Cannabis
a method of administration of cannabis whereby a cannabis product or by-product is heated below the temperature of combustion, thus turned into vapour (not smoke), and inhaled by a person. This could include vaporizing dried cannabis flower or vaping cannabis liquid using a vape pen.
Dabbing Cannabis
a method of administration of a cannabis concentrate by inhaling the vapours produced as a result of contact of the concentrate with a very hot surface.
Prevalence
is the proportion of a group or population reporting the indicated behaviour or outcome, usually expressed as a percentage.
Study Sample
a group drawn from a larger population to estimate the characteristics of the whole population.
Statistically Significant
the observed relationship between two or more variables is unlikely due to chance alone.
Weighted Results
weighting is the statistical technique used to allow the study sample to be representative of the target population; in other words, any participant’s response is weighted so that it represents a specific number of identical responses in the target population.
95% confidence interval
provides a range of values in which the estimated prevalence will fall 95% of the time (i.e., if the survey was repeated 20 times, the results would fall within this range 19 of those times, or 19 times out of 20).
