Smoke-free laws and smoke-free school campus policies

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, and Kentucky youth use tobacco at a consistently high rate. Smoke free ordinances/regulations are effective interventions for encouraging cessation and preventing initiation among youth. Smoke-free school policies that prohibit tobacco use on the entire campus create a pro-health norm. Youth who attend schools that permit employee smoking are more likely to be smokers. Schools located in communities with a smoke free law or ordinance may be more likely to adopt or maintain a comprehensive smoke-free school policy. No studies have examined the relationship between community-wide smoke-free laws/regulations and smoke-free school campus policies. The purpose of this secondary data analysis was to examine the association between smoke-free ordinances or regulations and smoke-free school policies in Kentucky middle and high schools. Administrators from 734 middle and high, public and private, schools completed a telephone survey. Logistic regression determined if the presence of a smoke-free ordinance or Board of Health regulation was predictive of comprehensive school policies, controlling for county-level population size, median household income, and pounds of tobacco produced. Schools located in communities with smoke-free laws or regulations were 3.5 times more likely to have a smoke-free school campus policy, compared to schools in communities without these laws or regulations. These findings suggest that community smoke-free laws or ordinances may help foster strong school tobacco policies which could help reduce Kentucky's high rate of youth smoking.