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University of Wisconsin Oshkosh's
You Know You Want To: A Comprehensive Tobacco Reduction
Plan
This intervention has achieved a 33% reduction in
the number of students who report smoking.
Project Description
The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh received a grant
from the Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board to reduce smoking rates by
4% on campus. The program that was developed included research into
and development of a social norms campaign. The first step of the project
involved the development of an instrument to assess students' tobacco-related
knowledge, perceptions, and behaviors. Data gathered from the administration
of this instrument provided the basis for the creation of a social norms
media campaign. It was hoped that using the social norms approach would
help to demonstrate that students overestimate the acceptance of smoking
among their peers and that this creates a misleading peer pressure to
initiate or to continue smoking.
The social
norms campaign served as the catalyst for a comprehensive smoking reduction
campaign that included: education, cessation promotion, policy change*
and community integration. Two subsequent post-tests of the campaign
have shown results of a 33.3% reduction in smoking rates.
*The policy change
was that the university's residence halls went from being about one
half smoke free to completely smoke free, and smoking was officially
prohibited at seated outdoor sporting events as well as in university
vehicles. The university is still working on the full implementation
of a ban on smoking within 25 feet of university building entrances.
Project
Funding Source
The University of
Wisconsin-Oshkosh received two grants to implement its plan. The first
was from the Center
for Tobacco Research and Intervention to develop and pilot a survey
instrument to measure knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes regarding
smoking. The second grant, received from the Wisconsin Tobacco Control
Board, was to research and implement the proposed comprehensive plan
over the 2001 academic year.
Project
Objectives
The objective of
this project was to reduce the number of 18-24 year-old smokers on the
UW Oshkosh campus by 4%.
Baseline
Data
Pre-test data was
gathered in fall 2000 (n = 437). 33.9% of the pre-test sample were smokers
following the Centers for Disease Control's definition: they had smoked
more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime and had smoked in the past
30 days.
Primary
Normative Message
The primary message
of the campaign was:
- 96% of UW Oshkosh
students who smoke want to quit before graduating.
Marketing
Methods Employed
A Number of methods
were used to deliver the normative messages of the campaign. They included:
Posters
Jane
A mannequin with messages related to smoking that was placed in
various locations around campus.
An "art
car"
A car plastered with various campaign themes that was created by students
during homecoming activities.
Advertisements
for campaign-related smoking cessation groups called "Survivor."
Some of the other
channels used to deliver campaign messages to students were:
- Advance-Titan
(student newspaper)
- Residence Life
movie channel
- Titan TV
- Titan radio station
- Information tables
around campus
- Educational sessions
- Group cessation
trips
- Table tents
Evaluation
and Project Results
A marketing survey
was administered to a representative sample (n = 97) of students in
spring 2002. Among the findings:
- 91 % of respondents
reported seeing "You Know You Want To…" posters around
campus
- 51.5% of respondents
reported seeing the mannequin Jane in various locations around campus
- 83.5% of respondents
recalled seeing the "art car" somewhere on campus
- 33% of respondents
reported viewing advertisements for the "Survivor" group
- 34% had seen
ads placed in the Advance-Titan
- 73% had seen
the information tables around campus
- 4% had seen ads
on Titan TV
- 3% had heard
ads on the Titan radio station
A marketing survey
was administered to a representative sample (n = 193) of students in
spring 2002. Among the findings:
- 88.1 % of respondents
reported seeing "You Know You Want To…" posters around
campus
- 74.6% of respondents
recalled seeing the "art car" somewhere on campus
- 45.6% had seen
ads placed in the Advance-Titan
- 62.5% had seen
the information tables around campus
- 5.7% had seen
the Dunk It contest at home basketball games
- 2% had seen ads
on Titan TV
- 1.5% had heard
ads on the Titan radio station
- 0.5% had visited
the website
Post-test data collected
in fall 2001 (n = 774) after one semester of the social norm campaign
showed a change in the students' perception of the percentage of UW
Oshkosh students who would like to quit smoking before graduation. This
increased from 57% in the pre-test to 71% in the first post-test. Data
collected from the second post-test in spring 2002 (n=632) showed that
after two semesters of the social norm campaign, the perception of students
who want to quit smoking before graduation had increased from 71% to
74.8%. This was precisely the misperception that the normative message
was intended to correct.
The first post-test
data also revealed that only 23.8% of the respondents were smokers as
compared to the 33.9% who were smokers in the pre-test sample. This
represents a 29.8% reduction in the number of students who reported
smoking. And the second post-test data revealed that 22.6% of respondents
were smokers, a further decrease of 5%, for a total decrease of 33.3%.
(Note: The definition
of "smoker" that was used was the same as that used by the
Centers for Disease Control: those who had smoked more than 100 cigarettes
in their lifetime and had smoked in the past 30 days.)
Project
Staff
Joe Abhold, Ph.D
Project Co-Director
Director-Counseling Center
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
800 Algoma Blvd., Dempsey Hall 201
Oshkosh, WI 54901
Tel 920.424.2061
Email abhold@uwosh.edu
Diane Zanto, R.N.,
M.S.N.
Project Co-Director
Tel 920.424.2424
Email zanto@uwosh.edu
Ruth McGinley
Grant Coordinator
Tel: 920-424-2092
E-Mail: mcginley@uwosh.edu
Chris Haywood
Marketing Specialist
Tel: 920-424-2242
E-Mail: haywoodc@uwosh.edu
Charity Chandler
Marketing Coordinator
Tel: 920-424-3108
E-Mail: chandc11@uwosh.edu
**Portions
of the information presented on this page were originally prepared by Michael
Haines and Richard Rice and are printed here with their permission.
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