SUNY Tobacco-free Policy Evaluation

The purpose of this project is to evaluate the Chancellor’s mandate for all SUNY campuses to implement smoke- and tobacco-free campus policies on attitudes, tobacco use behaviors, and assess campus readiness to implement such policies. This project will include: 1) SUNY student survey: In March 2016, an email will be sent to the President of approximately 60 SUNY campuses asking them to send out an email invitation to all students on their respective campus to participate in the online survey. The email, which will include the survey link, will be sent to all SUNY students in an effort to assess behaviors related to tobacco use, quit attempts, secondhand smoke exposure, tobacco-related social norms, and attitudes toward tobacco-free policies. A reminder email will go out one week later in an effort to increase participation. The project team will manage all IRB protocol submission and approval, data collection, data management, and data analysis. 2) SUNY Campus Readiness for Policy Change: The Campus Assessment of Readiness to End Smoking (CARES) was developed to assess college campuses’ readiness to implement smoke- or tobacco-free policies over time. Assessing campus readiness to adopt and implement SF and TF policies is a cutting-edge approach designed to support the development and assessment of stage-specific, tailored interventions to assist college campuses to promote and implement the policies. CARES consists of six dimensions: (1) campus knowledge about the negative effects of secondhand smoke and existing SF or TF policies; (2) campus leadership for policy development; (3) campus resources; (4) campus climate surrounding tobacco issues; (5) existing voluntary SF or TF policies; and (6) campus/community political climate. This online survey will be administered in June-July 2016 to 5-8 key informants from approximately 25 campuses (that have not yet implemented comprehensive tobacco-free policies) who are knowledgeable about their campus and have some involvement in health and wellness and/or knowledge or experience relevant to the development of SF or TF policies. A readiness report, highlighting overall readiness and scores within each dimension, would be distributed to each campus. Additional TA would need to be discussed/budgeted with each campus. The project team will manage all IRB protocol submission and approval, data collection, data management, and data analysis. 3) Development and Dissemination of Summary Reports. A final report summarizing the evaluation findings for each process detailed above will be developed and submitted. SUNY will have the opportunity to review this report. Once finalized, they will be permitted to disseminate to the campuses and additional stakeholders as they see fit. In addition, quarterly reports will be submitted to update SUNY on the progress of the project.