An Assessment of America\u27s Tobacco-Free Colleges and Universities: Policies, Procedures, Practices, and Adherence to Acha\u27s 2009 Guidelines and Recommendations

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\u27s 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 (\u3c10,000) 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