Let’s Clear the Air: a campaign that effectively increased compliance with a university’s tobacco-free policy

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the Let’s Clear the Air campaign, a print-based campaign guided by the theory of planned behavior, designed to increase compliance with a University’s tobacco-free policy among undergraduate student smokers. We hypothesized that individual-level compliance behaviors would increase with greater campaign exposure and that population-level compliance would improve post-intervention from baseline. To assess individual-level compliance, we collected survey data from 284 randomly selected undergraduate student smokers. To assess population-level compliance, we collected observational data by counting smokers in 10 violation locations for 10 weeks (three 30-minute periods per week). Data supported the hypotheses: Campaign exposure was related to an increase in individual-level compliance behaviors, and results from a negative binomial regression supported that population-level compliance improved from baseline to post-intervention. Implications regarding support for the campaign as an effective strategy for increasing tobacco-free policy compliance behaviors are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Campaign
• tobacco-free
• university
• smoking
• policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this study was received through internal mechanisms at the University of Kentucky. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the University of Kentucky.