Evaluation of University of California Tobacco Free Policy Now Available

Amanda Fallin, Maria Roditis, and I just delivered our independent evaluation of the UC Tobacco Free Policy to the UC Office of the President.
 
Here is the Executive Summary:
 

• College tobacco-free policies (policies which prohibit any tobacco use on the entire campus grounds including all outdoor areas) are a rapidly emerging trend.
• After the 2011 UC Occupational Wellness Forum, a smoking policy subcommittee was formed and tasked to develop a white paper proposal for UC to go tobacco-free. The white paper was entitled, “Smoke-free Policy Proposal.”
• In January 2012, in response to this document, President Mark Yudof wrote a letter to the UC Chancellors mandating that by January 2014 they adopt a smoke-free policy that: (1) defined smoke-free as the smoking, the use of smokeless tobacco products and unregulated nicotine devices in all indoor and outdoor spaces; (2) applied to all UC property; (3) prohibited advertising and sales of tobacco products; (4) relied on education for the first year with an emphasis on smoking cessation as the enforcement strategy
• This evaluation of the UC tobacco-free policy implementation used a mixed methods approach, including: (1) written policy analysis (evaluating adherence to Yudof’s mandate and the American College Health Association guidelines for a tobacco-free policy; (2) qualitative interviews (N=29); (3) surveys of students (N=218); (4) pre and post observations of cigarette butts, individuals smoking, and tobacco-free signage.
• In accordance with President Yudof’s mandate, each campus formed a subcommittee to implement the tobacco-free policy.
• Along with these specific campus meetings, systemwide task force meetings began in October 2012 and were attended by 1-2 members from each campus task force.
• Overall, campuses created policies with a high degree of compliance to President Yudof’s specific mandates.
• Seven of the ten campuses, however, had minor deviations from the mandate.
• The most highly publicized deviation from the mandate came from UC Irvine’s task force, which originally decided to prohibit just smoking and continue to allow smokeless tobacco and electronic cigarettes on campus.
• This decision to go against the President Yudof’s mandate resulted in media attention
• In response, newly appointed President Janet Napolitano sent a letter to the Chancellors, Medical Center Executive Officers, and Vice President of Agriculture and Natural Resources, reiterating that all units had to implement the policy, and included minimum guidelines for what had to be included in their policies.
• Within two weeks, UC Irvine changed its policy to include all tobacco products.
• The campuses also had a high degree of compliance with the American College Health Association’s guidelines for tobacco-free campuses.
• The majority of campuses with deficiencies with respect to the ACHA guidelines were in the areas of campus relationships to tobacco companies. None of the campuses specifically prohibited tobacco industry sponsorship of campus activities or tobacco industry recruitment on campus.
• Our survey of students conducted in April 2014, four months after the new policies took effect, indicated that 76.6% of students reported seeing a sign promoting the policy, yet only 20% of these students accurately identified their campus as a tobacco-free campus.
• Signage observations indicated that some campuses had left up old signs, such as those that read, “No smoking within 25 feet of the building.” Inconsistent signage may lead to confusion about the policy.
• Across all the campuses, there was a 65% decrease in cigarette butt litter.  In six of the seven schools, there was a decrease in cigarette butt litter after the policy went into effect.
• Key informants from each campus reported that policy compliance was a major issue on their campus.
• UC has not accepted any new research grants from the tobacco industry since the Board of Regents passed RE-89 in September 2007 and only one tobacco industry grant (at UCI, which was accepted before RE-89 and is running on a no-cost extension) remains in the UC system.
• Moving forward, the UC systemwide tobacco-free task force should:
  • Continue to conduct systemwide task force meetings, as suggested by the American College Health Association, to continue monitoring policy implementation
  • Regularly educate members of the campus task forces regarding the importance of smoke and tobacco free policies and reaffirm the goals of these policies
• The campus tobacco-free task forces should:
  • Continue to work on an enforcement plan for each campus that combines education and active enforcement through existing personnel procedures.
  • Maintain adequate and appropriate signage and refresh this signage at regular intervals
  • Continue to promote the policy as well as cessation aids, and refresh these promotional materials at regular intervals
  • Evaluate policy outcomes at six month intervals using tools such as measuring cigarette litter on the ground, assessing signage, assessing campus smoking and tobacco use prevalence rates and rates of use of cessation services.
• Continue implementing the reporting and review requirements of RE-89, including posting reports on the UCOP website, and consider bring UC into compliance with the ACHA guideline by adopting a policy of not accepting tobacco industry money for research.

 
The full report is available to all in the UC eScholarship Repository at www.escholarship.org/uc/item/0fq9664r.