Eurobarometer 52.1: Public Opinion on Biotechnology and Quality of Life, 1999

A November-December 1999 survey conducted by the European Commission across the European Union. It measures public attitudes towards modern biotechnology, genetic engineering, and genetically modified food, alongside assessments of personal quality of life, lifestyle, and satisfaction with healthcare and financial situations. The dataset was authored by Anna Melich for the European Commission.

Use Cases

• Analyzing public trust in institutions based on ratings of newspapers, government, and environmental groups mentioned in the description.
• Modeling attitudes towards genetically modified food based on agreement/disagreement statements about benefits and purchase intent.
• Studying the evolution of life satisfaction by comparing current, past, and future assessments of health, finances, and family life.

Strengths

• Survey covers multiple high-interest topics: biotechnology, quality of life, and consumer justice.
• Includes temporal comparisons for quality of life, asking respondents about changes over a two-year period and future expectations.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

European Commission

Collection Method

Survey

Time Range

November-December 1999

Geography

European Union