Punctual or aperiodic

Data collection was carried out by face-to-face interviews held from 15 January 2001 to 12 February 2001 in metropolitan France, conurbations of more than 20 000 inhabitants.

Face to face by interviewer

Individual

The sample is produced by three-stage sampling: conurbations, support services and survey days, and the users of these services.

In June 1999, 80 conurbations were randomly sampled: a complete register of the accommodation and hot meal distribution services was compiled in these conurbations.

In March 2000, a telephone survey of 2,800 organisations was conducted with a view to gathering additional information about the types and characteristics of the services on offer. A database of nearly 1,500 services was thus compiled.

Then, on the actual day of the survey (between January and February 2001), a third sampling level was applied: in general, 4 "service provisions x day". In practice, investigating the "services provided" actually amounted to investigating the beneficiaries of these services.

The services to be surveyed were selected either by random sampling from the list of users of the service or, in the absence of such a list, according to the order in which users passed through a mandatory point: front door, exit door or the meal distribution table.

All in all, INSEE surveyed 4,000 people aged 18 and over, in 80 conurbations in Metropolitan France, in order to obtain a representative sample of adults attending cooked meal distributions or accommodation services, in conurbations of more than 20,000 inhabitants.

Accompanying children were recorded but not questioned. It was only possible to contact people who had attended either an accommodation service or a cooked meal distribution service at least once during the week of the survey.