Student, Faculty, and Staff Approval of University Smoke/Tobacco-Free Policies: An Analysis of Campus Newspaper Articles

Abstract

Objective:To provide a nontraditional source of data to university policymakers regarding student, faculty, and staff approval of university smoke/tobacco-free policies, as published through campus newspaper articles.Methods:From January to April 2016, a total of 2523 articles were retrieved concerning campus smoking/tobacco at 4-year, public universities. Of these, 54 articles met the inclusion factors, which described 30 surveys about campus approval of tobacco-free policies and 24 surveys about smoke-free policies.Results:In all, the surveys included more than 130 000 respondents. With the exception of 4 surveys, all reported that the most of the respondents approved a tobacco/smoke-free campus policy.Conclusions:Although the study had several limitations, the findings provide a synthesis from a nontraditional data source that is consistent with findings from the peer-reviewed literature, in which most of the students, faculty, and staff on university campuses approve of smoke/tobacco-free campus policies.

Change in Compliance of Staff at 4 Vietnam Universities after the Enactment of Smoke-free Environment Decree

“…Recent literature indicated both faculties, staffs and students were in favour of the policy. 11 , 12 Furthermore, there has been evidence suggested that smoke-free policy had positive impact on active smoking as well as anti-smoking attitude. 13 Evidence, however, is currently limited in developing countries including Vietnam in the context that the current Law regulates university campuses to be partial, not complete, smoke-free areas.…”