We Believe Health Matters: A Tobacco-Free Campus

Tobacco use is a leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death worldwide.^1-2 Increasingly, colleges and universities across the United States of America are moving beyond smoke-free campuses by adopting tobacco-free campus policies. On August 1, 2013, Georgia Regents University comprised of the consolidated Georgia Health Sciences University (formerly Medical College of Georgia) and Augusta State University adopted a university-wide tobacco-free campus policy that includes electronic cigarettes. The purpose of the GRU tobacco-free campus video is to inform students, faculty, staff, alumni, and campus visitors or vendors about the tobacco-free policy, to demonstrate ways to enforce it, and to promote compliance. Two narrators, one a GRU employee and the other a GRU medical student, representing the university community describe key elements of the policy and address the policy’s enforcement. The narration is further illustrated with visuals and scenes from throughout the campus. Two vignettes model ways GRU students and employees can actively engage in the shared responsibility of enforcing their tobacco-free campus policy.

With the growing trend among colleges and universities going tobacco-free this video offers other universities, colleges, and even businesses a quick and useful reference tool that models ways to educate stakeholders about the institution being tobacco-free, not just smoke-free. It demonstrates ways students and employees can participate in community enforcement as a shared responsibility. This tobacco-free campus video has been incorporated into GRU's new employee orientation and is viewed on-line as part of GRU’s new student orientation. The video serves as an important educational tool designed to reinforce a new tobacco-free campus norm!

 1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2014.

2. The Scientific Basis of Tobacco Product Regulation. Second report of a WHO Study Group. World Health Organization Technical Report Series 951. 2008