Advocacy and Assessment of Tobacco Distribution on Rutgers

New Brunswick CampusBy: Sameer Ahmed

Health Outreach, Promotion and Education

• Thank you to Elizabeth Amaya-Fernandez, Health Education Specialist at Rutgers Health Services; Project Supervisor: Anne LeCluyse, Graduate Student of the School of Social Work and Ann Marie Hill who all helped make this project successful.

• Each year, secondhand smoke kills over 42,000 individuals in the United States.

• Nine out of the fourteen Big-10 Schools have gone completely smoke-free.

• Currently used tools involved questionnaires to uncover the opinions and attitudes of a smoke-free campus.

• Early outreach to reduce the misconception in attitudes and knowledge of tobacco/tobacco-less products.

• To propel Rutgers University, New Brunswick towards a smoke-free campus.

• To provide health-related educational services aimed at eliminating the distribution of tobacco products sold on campus.

Purpose

Outcome

Evaluation

Significance

Methods

Acknowledgements

65%13%

23%

RU Faculty, Staff and Students Vote

Favored

Opposed

Indifferent

Examine quantity, costs, and profits of

tobacco and tobacco-less products on

campus

Outreach through tabling at various

student-run organization events

Distribution of Surveys to gauge attitudes of

Rutgers’ Faculty, Staff, & Students

Collection of Data

Analyze ResultsPhoto by The Lantern

Advocacy

• Continued outreach with student-run organizations such as RUSA & Colleges Against Cancer

Collaboration

• Pursuit further outreach outside the realm of Rutgers organizations with other organizations (i.e. the Tobacco Dependence Program).

Action

• Push forth legislation towards University Senate to become the 10th Big-10 Smoke-Free School

Out of the sample size cohort (n=93), more than 3/5 of Rutgers University New Brunswick Students held a favorable attitude

•Limitation to the work is that the sample size is small, so analysis is preliminary.

Shortcoming