Shaping Healthier Futures
Perspectives and Attitudes Towards Health and Smoking
Your perspective is important for us.
Help us understand what you think about smoking, tobacco, and nicotine products, so we can shape healthier futures.
What is the PATHS survey?
The Perspectives, Attitudes and behaviours Towards Health and Smoking (PATHS) survey is part of a research project on health, smoking, and migration in Switzerland.
The information collected for this research project will contribute to a better understanding of how people think and feel about smoking and concrete smoking behaviours existing in Switzerland.
Why do we need the PATHS Survey?
There are two main reasons:
Nowadays, there are a lot of tobacco and nicotine products on the market, yet we know very little about how people see these products, and how they feel about them.
This is what we would like to find out.
Also, we know from various studies that some groups of people, such as those with migration backgrounds who speak multiple languages or languages other than the Swiss national ones at home, are often underrepresented. So, in this study, we aim to specifically reach people in Switzerland who were born abroad or have parents from other countries.
Who is managing the PATHS survey?
The PATHS survey is part of the PhD project of Kris Schürch, member of the research group on Community Health and Health Care Systems at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM) at the University of Bern.
The survey was developed in partnership with the Swiss Association for Tobacco Control (AT Switzerland). The distribution and recruitment strategy was developed in partnership with Diaspora TV.
Sign up and we will send you a link to the survey!
Additional Information
Raffle
We will be conducting a raffle amongst participants with winnings up to 1000CHF (10×100 CHF). If you would like to participate in the raffle, there will be a place at the end of the survey where you may place your e-mail address to take part in the raffle.
Freedom to participate and to withdraw
Your participation is voluntary. You have the right to withdraw from the study at any time without any impact. If you fill out the survey, you provide your consent for participation.
Confidentiality & Anonymisation
Participation is voluntary and all responses will be treated confidentially and anonymized in our analyses. We take the safety of your data seriously and have taken appropriate measures to ensure that your information, which is collected within the scope of this project, is well protected. The original records of the study will be kept safe within the University of Bern, only accessible to the research team. The locked file will be deleted at the end of the study, the end of the related PhD projects, but the latest after 10 years, according to standards in academic research. Moreover, the information we collect through the survey is stored on SurveyMonkey servers in the SurveyMonkey servers in the USA. Survey Monkey is certified under the EU-US Privacy Shield programme, which was designed by the US Department of Commerce and the European Commission. You can learn more about the EU-US Privacy Shield programme here.
Sharing the results
The results of the study will be fed into a scientific publication and might be used for scientific presentations or educational purposes. Please contact us for a summary of the results.
Contact
Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
Project lead: Prof. Dr. Annika Frahsa
Project coordination: Kris Schürch, MSc
E-Mail: kris.schuerch@unibe.ch
I am interested in understanding, explaining, and promoting health, equity, and well-being. Within the research group, we focus on three research areas: (1) prevention and health promotion, with a particular focus on physical activity promotion, (2) community health, and (3) healthy settings.
I am also dedicated to supporting students in developing their skills in critical thinking and asking why about health, disease, and illness. I do this by teaching courses on health promotion and Qualitative health research in different programs: the Public Health Sciences Course program for PhD students at UniBe, the inter-university MPH program, and the medical degree program.
My background is in social science: I studied political science and North American studies at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg/Germany and at McGill University Montréal in Canada. With work on the capability approach as a paradigm for physical activity-related health promotion, I received my habilitation at the University of Tübingen in 2021. Prior to my current position, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Univ. of Tübingen (2018-2021) and the FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg (2013-2018).
Out of the office, I try to spend the maximum time outside — Aare swimming and strolling; backcountry canoeing, tenting, and hiking with my family; as well as running for charity and talking time with the best squad.
I was born in France and then raised in five different countries (South Korea, Taiwan, Iran, India and the Netherlands). In the Netherlands, I completed my BSc in Public Health and MSc in Global Health. In 2020, I returned back to my roots in Switzerland, and eventually found myself working in public health as a project manager for the Swiss Association for Tobacco Control. Since 2022, I am also a PhD candidate at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine ISPM at the University of Bern. My research topic is migrant health and smoking in Switzerland. I see tobacco as one of the biggest public health challenges and am particularly interested in the politics of tobacco control. My other interests include global health governance, agroecology, and chocolate.
