Best Ways to Survey College Campuses about Tobacco Policies

Last week, Ozarks Technical Community College hosted the 6th annual Making Your Campus Tobacco-Free Workshop. The event was sponsored by the The Center of Excellence for Tobacco-Free Campus Policy.

This year's conference offered detailed presentations on how to make college campuses smoke-free and tobacco-free, lessons learned and more. This week, I will share a few tips, tricks and stories from the presentations.

It wasn't easy to survey college students at five college campuses in Syracuse, N.Y. about tobacco-free policies - which Mary Lou Schweizer found out the hard way.

Schweizer was charged with getting details on student and faculty smoking habits for a grant issued to the Onondaga County Health Department. The three-year process started six months late - time really needed to help get opinions from those in academia.

Based on her experiences, Schweizer shared some key points for other professionals to consider when attempting to survey college campuses about tobacco:

• Online surveys sent via a link in email are the most effective in time and money.
• Make sure you have the right emails. Some college students and faculty don't use their university-issued email, so ask the college registrar or Dean of Student's office to collect secondary addresses.
• The time of year a survey is issued matters. Don't expect good results if you send your link out before a holiday break.
• More people participate if a prize is offered. The chance to win several Best Buy gift cards enticed several to participate in the Onondaga County survey process.
• Ask survey recipients if they have called a quit line, visited quit line Web site or both. Don't just ask for one or the other, as this will skew results for the number of people who seek quit help.
• Get the low down on campus politics before you begin. This can go a long way to making the process go smoothly.
• Use social media to talk about tobacco-free living and the survey.
• You MUST have the backing of administrators and help on campus to make the survey a success.
• Make certain no other college department is surveying the campus about other issues before you send out your survey alert. Consider postponing your initiative until a campus-wide survey is complete. 

In general, Schweizer found that most students overestimate the number of smokers on campus. While the majority of students favor tobacco-free policies, faculty are usually adamantly opposed.