Businesses' voluntary pro-health tobacco policies: a review and research agenda

Abstract

Research on the role of businesses in tobacco control has focused primarily on retailers, advertising firms and the hospitality industry, all of which have tended to support tobacco industry interests and resist effective tobacco control policies. However, in several countries, businesses have a history of voluntarily adopting tobacco-related policies that may advance tobacco control objectives. These phenomena have received little research attention. Existing literature on businesses ending tobacco sales, instituting voluntary workplace smoking restrictions and establishing non-smoker only hiring policies was reviewed. A research agenda on voluntary business initiatives would enhance and complement research on mandatory tobacco control policies by identifying new advocacy opportunities; suggesting avenues for strengthening or reinforcing existing policy initiatives; laying the groundwork for new mandatory policies; helping to inform ethical debates about contentious voluntary policies; and contributing to a better understanding of how alliances between the tobacco industry and other businesses might be weakened.

Who stops selling? A systematic analysis of ex-tobacco retailers

“…Despite the theoretical attractiveness of the aforementioned strategies, there is limited evidence supporting their effectiveness,14 with a 2012 review identifying a lack of information about why retailers other than pharmacies voluntarily stop selling tobacco 15. Since that review, two small studies have identified regulatory pressure, declining tobacco sales and health or ethics-related concerns as the main motivators for retailers to stop selling tobacco 14 16.…”

How Low Should You Go? Determining the Optimal Cutoff for Exhaled Carbon Monoxide to Confirm Smoking Abstinence When Using Cotinine as Reference

“…Confirming smoking abstinence during smoking cessation treatment is critical in determining treatment effectiveness. Although self-report has been one primary method of verifying smoking status, self-report may not be accurate in highdemand situations such as requiring smoking abstinence as a condition of hiring (McDaniel & Malone, 2012;Schmidt, Voigt, & Emanuel, 2013;Voigt, 2012), determining smoking status in pregnant women (e.g., Shipton et al, 2009) or adolescents (e.g., Mermelstein et al, 2002), or during smoking cessation treatment (Dolcini, Adler, & Ginsberg, 1996;Patrick et al, 1994;Velicer, Prochaska, Rossi, & Snow, 1992). Several biological methods for verifying abstinence are widely used and include measuring exhaled carbon monoxide (CO) as well as nicotine or cotinine concentrations in plasma, saliva, and urine (see Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco [SRNT] Subcommittee on Biochemical Verification, 2002).…”

Smoking at the workplace: effects of genetic and environmental causal accounts on attitudes toward smoking employees and restrictive policies

“…The present study explores these effects among a young population of college students. Because of the interest in policies and regulations designed to reduce smoking on the job or in proximity to the workplace (Lu et al 2011, McClure et al 2013, McDaniel and Malone 2012), this study focused on the work environment.…”