BackgroundBack


The Public Opinion Programme (POP) was established in June 1991 to collect and study public opinion on topics which could be of interest to academics, journalists, policy-makers, and the general public. POP was at first under the Social Sciences Research Centre, a unit under the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Hong Kong, it was transferred to the Journalism and Media Studies Centre in the University of Hong Kong in May 2000. In January 2002, it was transferred back to the Faculty of Social Sciences in the University of Hong Kong. Since its establishment, POP has been providing quality survey services to a wide range of public and private organizations, on condition that they allow the POP Team to design and conduct the research independently, and to bear the final responsibilities. POP also insists that the data collected should be open for public consumption in the long run.

In May 2008, the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association of Hong Kong commissioned Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong (POP) to conduct an opinion survey entitled "Hong Kong Family Happiness Index Survey". The main objective of this survey was to gauge the general public's opinion towards happiness and its relationship with family, friends and people around.

The research instrument used in this study was designed by the POP Team after consulting the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association of Hong Kong, whilst fieldwork operations and data analysis were also conducted independently by the POP Team, without interference from any outside party. In other words, POP was given full autonomy to design and conduct the survey, and POP would take full responsibility for all the findings reported herewith.