Secondhand Smoke Casino Advocacy Guide
How to conduct a secondhand smoke campaign with Indian-owned casinos
The California Rural Indian Health Board’s (CRIHB) American Indian Tobacco Education Partnership (AITEP) has created an advocacy guide that assists health educators and tobacco control advocates in initiating and maintaining a cooperative professional relationship with American Indian communities, their Tribal Governments and Casino Management.
Many health educators are familiar with organizing and running a smoke-free campaign. Perhaps you have created a smoke-free event in your area, or helped pass a smoke-free local ordinance or campaigned for a tribal or state law. As a good advocate, you know that it is imperative to assess and understand the needs of your target audience. This guide is specifically for the purpose of developing a smoke free campaign with American Indian-owned casinos. It will help the user understand the history and issues concerning American Indian casinos as well as the best methods for working with tribes to advocate for smoke-free policies that address their needs and concerns as well as those of the health care community.
The guide begins with an overview of the political economy of tribal casinos, discusses the history of tribal governments and issues surrounding the history of American Indians and the financial benefits resulting from Indian casinos. The guide then provides information on how to conduct an advocacy campaign with American Indian casinos, as well as some sample objectives and a campaign checklist. The appendices contain useful advocacy tools for working with casinos and tribes, including a casino telephone survey, the AITEP casino guide, a telephone survey script, sample introduction letters to tribal governments, casino observation forms, sample policies, a sample press release, and other tools to assist with the campaign.
AITEP’s SHS Casino Advocacy Guide has received support from tribally-elected officials, tribal health program staff, casino managers, and the State of California’s Tobacco Control Section, who funded its development. Our research has found strong support among casino patrons and staff working in the casinos for improved secondhand smoke policies. In large urban casinos in California, more than 80% of patrons reported that they would play at least as often in smoke-free rooms, and more than 80% of the staff reported that they would prefer to work in a smoke-free environment.
Advocacy Guide with images (3.78MB Microsoft Word Document) (799KB Adobe Acrobat PDF)
Advocacy Guide (392KB Microsoft Word Document) (467KB Adobe Acrobat PDF)
Cover page for Advocacy Guide (Microsoft Publisher Document)
For additional information on the CRIHB Secondhand Smoke Casino Advocacy Guide, please contact Mr. Raul Salazar at (916) 929-9761, or via e-mail at raul.salazar@ihs.gov.