HKU POP SITE releases the latest results of subjective freedom indicatorsBack
| Press Release on August 4, 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Special Announcement: About voluntary blood test recruitment The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong is being commissioned by the School of Public Health of the same university to recruit voluntary families to participate in a study on the proportion of infections of the novel strain of H1N1 swine influenza, through random telephone interviews. The study would facilitate the pandemic preparedness for our government as well as health authorities around the world. Voluntary family members will be invited to have two rounds of small blood samples taking, details of which will be explained during the recruitment exercise. We sincerely plead for people's cooperation. This study is conducted by the School of Public Health in collaboration with Queen Mary Hospital and the Centre for Health Protection of Department of Health. It is funded by the Area of Excellence Scheme of the Hong Kong University Grants Committee and the Research Fund for the Control of Infectious Diseases, Hong Kong. The study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Hong Kong/ Hospital Authority Hong Kong West Cluster. If people have any questions in relation to the study, please contact the School of Public Health hotline at 8170-0183, or by email to [email protected], or visit the following website: http://web.hku.hk/~kkocuhk/serofluc.htm. |
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Abstract POP interviewed 1,003 Hong Kong people from 20 to 23 July by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey finds that, of the 10 subjective freedom indicators covered in the survey, 6 have gone down, 3 have gone up and 1 remains unchanged. Of the 6 downs, 5 have dropped beyond sampling errors, including freedoms of 'press', to 'strike', 'move in and out of Hong Kong', of 'publication' and 'speech'. As for the 3 ups, although only the freedom of 'procession and demonstration' has gone beyond sampling error, stimulated by the July 1 rally, its rating has indeed reached a record high since this survey series began in 1997. In terms of relative ranking, the freedom of 'religious belief' continues to stay at the top to form the first tier with over 8.5 marks. The freedoms to 'enter or leave Hong Kong' and of 'procession and demonstration' which used to stay at the top and third tier respectively are now closing in to the second tier occupied by free engagement in 'academic research' and 'artistic and literary creation', with ratings near 8.0 marks. The other 5 indicators can be taken to form the third tier, with ratings between 7.0 and 7.5 marks. The sampling error of all subjective freedom indicators is between +/-0.10 and 0.14 at 95% confidence level, while the response rate of the survey is 69%. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Latest Figures POP today releases on schedule via the "POP SITE" the latest results of subjective freedom indicators. All the figures have been weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2008 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:
Recent trends of these indicators are summarized as follows:
# Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful. The survey conducted in the second half of July revealed that, on a scale of 0-10, the freedom of "religious belief" scored the highest rating with 8.82 marks. Freedom of "entering or leaving Hong Kong" came second with 8.35 marks, followed by freedoms to engage in "academic research", "artistic and literary creation" and of "procession and demonstration", attaining 8.07, 7.95 and 7.85 marks correspondingly. Freedoms of "speech", "publication", "association" and of "press" formed the next tier, with respective scores of 7.56, 7.46, 7.37 and 7.35 marks. Finally, the freedom to "strike" attained 7.06 marks. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Opinion Daily In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called "Opinion Daily" at the "POP Site", to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis, in order to provide readers with accurate information so that they can judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP since July 24 each day a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to the "Opinion Daily" feature page as soon as they are verified by POP. For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey was conducted from January 12 to 13, 2009 while the latest one was conducted from July 20 to 23, 2009. In between these two surveys, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.
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Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Compared to 6 months ago, our latest survey shows that of the 10 subjective freedom indicators covered in the survey, 6 have gone down, 3 have gone up and 1 remains unchanged. Of the 6 downs, 5 have dropped beyond sampling errors, including freedoms of 'press', to 'strike', 'move in and out of Hong Kong', of 'publication' and 'speech'. As for the 3 ups, although only the freedom of 'procession and demonstration' has gone beyond sampling error, stimulated by the July 1 rally, its rating has indeed reached a record high since this survey series began in 1997. In terms of relative ranking, the freedom of 'religious belief' continues to stay at the top to form the first tier with over 8.5 marks. The freedoms to 'enter or leave Hong Kong' and of 'procession and demonstration' which used to stay at the top and third tier respectively are now closing in to the second tier occupied by free engagement in 'academic research' and 'artistic and literary creation', with ratings near 8.0 marks. The other 5 indicators can be taken to form the third tier, with ratings between 7.0 and 7.5 marks. We leave it for our readers to figure out the reasons for the ups and downs of these indicators using detailed records shown in our 'Opinion Daily' feature page."
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| Special Announcement: About voluntary blood test recruitment |
