Positive Influence of Smoking Bans

Positive Influence of Smoking Bans

Smoking ban

Most schools cite the same reason in enacting a ban: They want to protect students, faculty, staff, campus visitors and others from harmful second-hand smoke. The bans obviously also make it more difficult for smokers to continue their habit. Do these bans work? Do they change students' behavior and attitudes? When the Indiana University in Bloomington announced that it would ban smoking starting in January 2008, health science researchers at the university decided to study the topic (PBS 2010). They compared their home campus, where smoking would soon not be allowed anywhere, to nearby Purdue University in West Lafayette, where smoking was allowed as long as smokers stayed at least 30 feet away from buildings (Fortin 2007). They recruited instructors at each university to invite students in their classes to participate in a paper-and-pencil survey during the fall of 2007 and then again in fall 2009. More than 3,200 students participated in each survey (Shearer 2011).

The researchers also had a pool of 301 Indiana students and 231 Purdue students who completed online surveys at the beginning of the fall 2008, spring 2009 and fall 2009 semesters (Meiler 2012). The researchers found that Indiana students who lived under the ban had a marked change in their attitudes about smoking and their smoking habits, while things at Purdue stayed mostly the same. The researchers, led by associate professor Dong-Chul Seo, noted that Indiana's smoking ban wasn't strictly enforced (Sun et al 2012).

The positive changes may be attributable to increased awareness of the policy due to signage an media coverage, the team of researchers wrote in an article published online in the journal Preventive Medicine in 2011. An awareness campaign included a campus bus that was completely wrapped with anti-tobacco messaging. The researchers ...