Implementing a Tobacco-Free Campus Initiative in Your Workplace
- Introduction
- Assessing Need and Interest
- Planning a TFC Initiative
- Promoting the Initiative
- Implementing the Initiative
- Evaluating Success
Assessing Need and Interest
Assessing the need for and interest in a tobacco-free campus (TFC) initiative is the first phase in ensuring its success. This phase consists of the following steps:
Forming a TFC Committee
Form a committee to plan and conduct the needs assessment. Recruit
committee members who have experience in communications and data collection,
have access to the type of information you will need to collect, and have
access to the people from whom you want input (e.g., management, unions).
Involving labor unions early is critical to the success of the initiative.
The group will define the overall goal for the initiative and identify key
stakeholders. This committee does not have to be formal or comprehensive
until you have confirmed the need for and interest in a TFC initiative.
Assessing Management Interest
If management has already decided that a tobacco-free campus is a
priority for your organization, then skip ahead to planning the needs
assessment. Otherwise, securing management support for a TFC initiative
should be a top priority.
Management support is one of the most often cited keys to successfully
implementing a tobacco-free policy. In addition, management expectations
often drive the development of tobacco-free policies and programs,1 so
solicit management input early in the process on:
- The appropriateness of a TFC initiative for your organization
- Desired provisions of the policy, including enforcement
- Options for offering expanded cessation services
- Budgetary considerations for implementing the initiative
Provide management with the needs assessment data and other information to assist them in making TFC-related decisions. This could include factsheets on the health consequences of smoking, the health consequences of secondhand smoke, the cost of tobacco use, and the health and economic benefits of a TFC.
Assessing Your Workplace
Assess the current situation. Determine whether there is an indoor smoke- or
tobacco-free policy at your workplace. If so, research the provisions of the
policy and assess whether employees comply with them. Review existing health
assessment files, if appropriate, or conduct an employee survey to establish
a baseline estimate of the number of employees who use tobacco. Before
collecting employee input, obtain guidance from appropriate agency personnel
to determine what approvals are needed. If you do not have access or the
ability to assess employee tobacco use, CDC’s
State Data Highlights document provides state prevalence data that can
be used as a baseline number.
Find out what tobacco use cessation services are available to your
employees. In particular, consider the adequacy of current health insurance
coverage available to employees for tobacco dependence treatment (medication
and counseling) and any tobacco use cessation support services offered
through your work site health promotion or human resources office. Determine
whether there are data on the number of employees taking advantage of these
services and their satisfaction with the current cessation support options.
Consider integrating tobacco use cessation interventions with occupational health and safety issues, including fire prevention. One study found this approach very effective among blue-collar workers.3 |
At present, several companies that provide health insurance to federal employees through the Office of Personnel Management offer coverage for prescription medications and counseling. Federal employers might consider assessing the actual amount of coverage that is offered by their employees’ plans and then promoting the services to employees.
If your employees are represented by a union, find out whether the existing
contract addresses tobacco use in the workplace and how the collective
bargaining process would affect development and enforcement of a TFC policy.
Worker health and safety are key union concerns, so you may want to consider
highlighting these aspects of the TFC initiative (e.g., access to expanded
tobacco use cessation services, a work environment that supports healthy
choices, the ways in which employee smoking can interact with certain
occupational chemical exposures to compound health risks, increased employee
protections from secondhand smoke in outdoor settings.)2
If your property is leased, determine whether there are contractual limitations
to the policies you can establish.
Lastly, review relevant state and local laws or regulations on tobacco use
in the workplace and research how other businesses and agencies in your area
approach this issue.1
Your state health
department may be able to offer additional local resources.
Gathering Input
Solicit input from union leaders, employee representatives, and other employees (including smokers, former smokers, smokeless tobacco users, and nonusers). Be responsive to this input and use it in the development and implementation of the new policy provisions and expanded cessation services. Assessing employees’ and labor unions’ attitudes toward the current and proposed policy and cessation services will help you:
- Gauge their level of readiness to accept a TFC policy
- Identify potential opportunities to build support for implementing a TFC initiative
- Identify potential barriers to implementing a TFC initiative and possible ways to address these barriers
- Prioritize the types of tobacco use cessation services that will be offered based on expressed interest and health plan coverage
- Determine the level of education needed on the health effects of tobacco use and the benefits of the planned policy
- Gauge the appropriate tone for TFC initiative communication materials
- Identify preferred communication channels for information about the TFC initiative
- Determine whether low-literacy or culturally specific materials are needed
Consider collecting this information formally or informally through committee meetings, work groups, task forces, surveys, focus groups, or “town hall” meetings. Before collecting employee input, obtain guidance from appropriate agency experts to help determine what approvals are needed. For example, federal agencies are subject to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulations and will experience a long lead time if OMB approval is needed. Similarly, if your assessment is part of a research project, check with the appropriate institutional review board (IRB) to determine whether IRB approval is needed. Each agency or company should work with its own internal policy and legal staff to develop appropriate guidelines and procedures for gathering employee input.
Next Steps
After collecting enough information to confirm the need for and interest in a TFC initiative, begin the planning phase.
Other Helpful Information
- Annual Smoking-Attributable Mortality, Years of Potential Life Lost, and Productivity Losses — United States, 1997–2001
- CDC’s State Data Highlights
- Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke
- Health Consequences of Smoking
- HWI’s Needs Assessment 101
- Making the Business Case for Smoking Cessation*
- Making Your Workplace Smoke-free: A Decision Maker’s Guide
- Office of Management and Budget Regulations
- Save Lives, Save Money: Make Your Business Smoke-Free (PDF-3317k)
- Smoke-Free Employee Surveys (Available at http://www.workingsmokefree.com.* Click on “Make It Happen.”)
- Your State or Local Health Department
References
1Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Making Your Workplace Smokefree:
A Decision Maker’s Guide. Available at
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/research_data/environmental/etsguide.htm.
2Organized Labor and Tobacco Control Network. (2005). Reducing Smoking at
the Worksite Among Blue-Collar Manufacturing Workers — The WellWorks
Approach.
3Sorensen G, Stoddard AM, LaMontagne AD, Emmons K, Hunt MK,
Youngstrom R, McLellan D, Christiani DC. A
comprehensive worksite cancer prevention intervention: Behavior change
results from a randomized controlled trial (United States). Cancer Causes
and Control 2002;13:493–502.
Please note: Some of these publications are available for download only as *.pdf files. These files require Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to be viewed. Please review the information on downloading and using Acrobat Reader software.
* Links to non-Federal organizations found at this site are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the Federal Government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.
Page last updated: May 22, 2007
Content Source: Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion