Following refinements in survey research, well-specified and standardised methods were developed for population surveys on alcohol use [12–14], illegal drug use [15], and tobacco use [16]. Cross-national elaboration of these protocols is difficult [14,17], though, and has consequently been limited. More qualitative “rapid assessment” methods, widely adopted in the emerging market economies and valuable for within-country planning purposes, are difficult to use for the purposes of cross-national comparisons [18].
