Term of Award

Spring 2010

Degree Name

Doctor of Public Health (Dr.P.H.)

Document Type and Release Option

Dissertation (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health

Committee Chair

Charles Hardy

Committee Member 1

Robert Vogel

Committee Member 2

Stuart Tedders

Committee Member 3

Andrew Epstein

Committee Member 3 Email

Unknown

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to survey each of the 100% tobacco-free campuses in the nation (N=175) to assess their policies, procedures, and practices, and the extent to which they adhere to American College Health Association (ACHA) guidelines promoting tobacco-free environments in colleges and universities. One key informant from each participating institution completed an online 35-item survey regarding school tobacco policies, practices, and enforcement. A scoring rubric was devised to measure compliance with ACHA guidelines. One hundred sixty-two institutions responded to the online survey, yielding a response rate of 92.6%. Cross-tabulations and Fisher's Exact Tests were used to examine the relationship of geographic region, institution type, enrollment size, and geographic location to compliance with ACHA guidelines. Results demonstrated that tobacco-free schools fall short of total compliance with current ACHA guidelines. Institutional type and enrollment size appear to be the most closely related factors among demographic variables, with public colleges/universities having the highest degree of compliance, and smaller schools (<10,000) more likely to enforce tobacco control policies. Larger schools are more likely to employ a tobacco control task force of a variety of members to enforce tobacco control policies. Findings from this study may serve as a helpful resource to colleges and universities for development of public health policies, practices, and enforcement for tobacco control.

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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