The sample for data collection is designed to be representative of the adult population aged 15+ of Great Britain.

Overview of the PAMCo Sample

PAMCo has a multi-stage disproportional pre-selected sample design.

The three stages of sampling are as follows:

1)    Selection of sampling points (1392 points for 2024)

2)    Selection of addresses

3)    Selection of individuals

The sampling frame for the selection of sampling points comprises all Output Areas (OAs) in Great
Britain. In 2024, two OAs were selected for all sampling points, with the exception of the most rural.
The sampling frame for the selection of addresses is the Postal Address File (PAF). At the postal stage, addresses in each sample point are invited through a postal invitation and up to two
household members are invited to take part.

At the field stage, interviewers are issued with all addresses that have not completed the survey at
the postal stage (and have not declined the interviewer visit). At each household contacted, up to
two household members aged 15+ are invited to take part

Selection of Sampling Points

The first stage of sampling is to select the sample points (or locations) where interviews will be carried out. Unlike previous years, in 2024 no additional weights were applied to upweight areas with high incidence of AB social grade.

The steps taken to select the sampling points were as follows:

a) Great Britain was divided into 60 area groupings, devised for Ultimately these areas were individually weighted and used to piece together the Government Office Region and non-overlap ISBA TV regions.

b) An ACORN Sampling band flag was appended to all OAs, using the following

c) The adult populations of each of the 60 weighting areas were used to set the target number of sampling points in each area. The total number of points at this stage was 1,244 per

d) A further 68 points were added for Scotland. This was to allow for larger analysis samples for Scottish newspapers and Scottish editions of national newspapers.

e) 44 boost points were added in London and 36 in the South East in order to allow for larger reporting samples in these regions.

f) Building on the 2023 design, in 2024 some points were only worked at the postal stage (Postal Only Boost) and others were worked at both postal and field stage (Reference sample). In 2024 50% of the points were postal only boost sample (no field stage) and 50% of the points were reference sample (included the field stage).

g) The total number of points in 2024 was 1392. 696 were Reference points and 696 were Postal Boost points. These were equally split across two half year periods 2024 H1 and 2024 H2.

h) Across the 1392 sample points the 4 cells of 348 were matched by:

1. Weighting area
2. Sampling band within region

i) Within each area grouping and ACORN sampling band, OAs were ranked in descending order by district grouping by NS-SEC.

j) The required number of OAs within each area grouping was then selected with probability proportional to adult populations, using random start/fixed sampling interval procedures.

k) Any selected OA falling into a ‘no-go’ area was replaced with one in the sample District and same ACORN Type with population size closest to the originally selected OA.

Reference and Boost Points

A division into ‘reference’ and ‘boost’ points was made for the first time in 2023 and was continued in 2024. Half of the selected points were assigned as ‘reference’ points and half as ‘boost’ points. In reference points, both the postal stage and the field stage were worked, whereas in the boost stage only the postal stage was conducted, with no follow-up field stage. The two types of point were matched fully by GOR and as fully as possible by ACORN sampling band and weighting areas within GOR.

The area groupings used and the target number of Sampling Points selected were as follows:

England and Wales

Scotland