Implementation Setting
The implementation setting for Tobacco-Free SFU is focused on the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
Target Population
The organization targets students of the Simon Fraser University, as well as the members of its faculty.
The Goal of the Program
The goal of the program is the adoption of a Tobacco-Free Campus policy, which would ensure that tobacco companies have no effect on the actions of the faculty, students, or any policymakers that may have power over the university. The policy would also prevent smoking outside of designated areas, and appearance of any tobacco marketing on in the area.
Main Components
The campaign is mostly focused on cigarette butt clean-up events, the creation of educational materials, lectures, and presentations on the negative impact of cigarettes on people’s health and the environment around them. Clean-up events were focused on the collection of cigarette butts and other related waste in the main areas of the SFU Burnaby campus. Such events involved the participation of multiple teams led by students. The event was promoted through social media. As a result, approximately 65,000 cigarette butts were collected, put into glass jars, and displayed in the university to raise awareness. Educational materials created by the organization are primarily presented as posters containing information related to tobacco waste reduction and impact of tobacco on the environment. The lectures included the participation of professional presenters on the issues of tobacco waste, as well as health and safety.
Reflection
Tobacco-Free SFU took a safe but respectable approach to health promotion. The materials created by its members were informative, and outside of poor visual aids, they were made with care and may have been successful. The most effective measure of health promotion performed as a part of this campaign was the tobacco waste clean-up day. It brought a relatively high degree of attention from the target population, and at the same time served the community the campaign was designed to benefit. The lectures that were performed as a part of this campaign appear to be well organized, and the use of qualified specialists as speakers brought a level of legitimacy to the campaign which is uncommon among student-organized efforts.
However, it should be noted that the campaign did not succeed in its efforts to create a tobacco-free policy on the university campus. Nevertheless, the behavioral change desired by the campaign can be seen on campus and the world at large. Smoking is becoming a relatively rare activity and has since been largely replaced by the use of electronic cigarettes. The latter also resolved one of the most serious issues that the campaign was trying to address. The amount of tobacco waste such as ash and cigarette butts has decreased dramatically. While the program did not meet its main goal, it is difficult to consider it a failure. Perhaps with repeated events like the tobacco waste clean-up day, and promotion through social media, the campaign could have brought more attention to itself, and attracted people to the idea of a policy change on campus. The later events performed by the campaign were not as focused on policymaking as perhaps they should have been, but they served as effective awareness measures.