Abstract
Objective: To examine the prevalence of various types of tobacco-free policies among a US national sample of postsecondary educational institutions (PEIs). Participants: A national sample of US PEIs (N = 605) attended by the participants of the NEXT Generation Health Study. Methods: Tobacco policies of these PEIs were reviewed to determine if they were e-cigarette-free (yes/no), hookah-free (yes/no), and ACHA-recommended tobacco-free (yes/no) in June–December 2017. Logistic regression models were used to examine the relationships between institutional characteristics and tobacco policies. Results: Overall, 39.2, 26.0, and 20.0% of the sample adopted e-cigarette-free, hookah-free, and ACHA-recommended tobacco-free policies, respectively. Proprietary PEIs (vs. public) were less likely to have ACHA-recommended tobacco-free policies, while PEIs in the South and Midwest (vs. West) were more likely to have ACHA-recommended tobacco-free policies (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Most sampled PEIs did not have ACHA-recommended tobacco-free polices. Subsequent research needs to investigate how ACHA-recommended tobacco policies influence tobacco use.
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Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Ms. Cynthia Hallet and the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation for providing tobacco-free policy information on some of the education institutions, and technical support for the coding tobacco-free policies.
Conflict of interest disclosure
The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States. This study was determined by the National Institutes of Health Office of Human Subject Research Protection as non-human subject research (analysis of publicly available records) and therefore exempted from review by the Institutional Review Board.