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Tip Tuesday - Building Partnerships Across Campus for Health

June 7, 2016

Whether you are on a small or large campus, if working alone, it would be impossible for your peer education group to reach every student. Thankfully, there are many ways to partner with other groups on campus to improve your educational efforts.

This article originally appeared in The BACCHUS Network’s The Peer Educator magazine.

The descriptions below focus on creating partnerships across campus to comprehensively educate about just one important health topic: tobacco control. But don’t despair if tobacco isn’t your focus! The principles and ideas can easily be transferred to other health topics.

Students

One of the first partnerships your peer educators should focus on developing is with other student groups on campus. This will ensure greater access to a diverse selection of our target audience: students themselves! While your particular campus might not have all the student groups listed below, here is an overview of possible partnerships for tobacco education.

Environmental Student Group

Cigarette butt litter and smokeless tobacco waste both have a negative impact on the campus’ environmental health. Cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world - approximately 4.5 trillion are littered every year. The butts take years to decompose, and the toxic chemicals left over find their way into the soil, waterways, and small animals that mistake the butts for food. With the ever-expanding trend to act in an environmentally responsible manner, connecting tobacco control issues with environmental ones is a great way to increase supporters for wellness on campus.

Event Idea: Earth Day

Partner with the environmental group to host a campus-wide cigarette butt litter cleanup event. Collect all the cigarette butts on campus and display at tables around campus. Use the visual to attract students and then educate how tobacco litter harms the environment. Collect contact information for students who would like to become more involved in tobacco control.

LGBT Student Group

The tobacco industry targets their ads and promotions at the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations. Not coincidentally, this community is disparately affected by tobacco. Studies have shown that the LGBT population has considerably higher smoking rates than the general U.S. population. Meet with the LGBT student group on your campus, ask about their concerns related to tobacco addiction, discuss how they are being targeted by the tobacco industry, provide them with cessation resources, and ask for their support when promoting stronger tobacco policies.

Social Justice Group

The tobacco industry does create some jobs in developing countries by choosing to manufacture its product there. However, these jobs are often dangerous and provide little pay. Tobacco farm workers can become sick from harmful pesticides and/or when nicotine is absorbed through their skin. The tobacco industry also loans money to farmers to create a tobacco farm, but then offers such low prices for the tobacco grown that farmers enter a cycle of debt. To help the family make as much money as possible, children sometimes are needed to work on the farms.

Event Idea: World Day of Social Justice

Partner with the social justice student group to educate the campus about the injustices caused by the tobacco industry through posters, flyers, student newspaper ads, chalking, etc.

Medical and Nursing Students

Not only are medical and nursing students naturally inclined to care about health, but also many hospitals have created tobacco-free properties. Attending school at a tobacco-free college would help them gain firsthand experience with what they will encounter in the future. These students should be advocates for creating campus policies that protect everyone from secondhand smoke exposure.

Business Leaders Student Group

In the U.S., we spend $170 billion on direct medical care caused by smoking, and another $156 billion on lost productivity due to premature death and exposure to secondhand smoke. Since business students should be concerned with fiscal responsibility and the impact of health expenditures, use this information to recruit them to support tobacco-free policies.

Faculty

Meet with faculty from various departments to ask if they would integrate health topics into their lectures and assignments. For instance, a professor of international relations could ask students to research the tobacco industry’s use of child labor in developing countries. A statistics professor could design a homework assignment where students compare the health care expenditures due to tobacco-related illnesses between different states or countries. The required course material can still be covered while educating about several aspects of an important health issue.

RAs

Whether your campus allows tobacco use on campus or not, resident advisors are an integral part of tobacco control. For smoke-free or tobacco-free campuses, RAs should be told how important it is for them to enforce the policy among their residents. Secondhand smoke is a serious danger, particularly for those with existing health conditions, and resident advisors should be empowered to keep secondhand smoke away from all windows and doors.

Maintenance Staff

Ask the campus maintenance staff how much time they spend cleaning up cigarette butt litter and smokeless tobacco waste, and use this information to educate tobacco users and urge them to reduce the negative impacts of tobacco use.

Health Center

The health center, of course, is another ideal place to promote tobacco control. The doctors and nurses have frequent contact with tobacco users and have expertise that students are willing to hear.

Meet with the health center’s director and ask about their procedures in connecting tobacco users with cessation resources. Every student should be asked whether or not they use tobacco, and those who do should be advised to quit and given information about evidence-based options, such as counseling (1-800 QUIT NOW), technology-based programs (text messaging and web coaching) and pharmacotherapy options.

Summary

While this overview of campus partnerships has focused on tobacco education, similar partnerships can be created for a wide range of health topics. Collaborate with the recreation center and dining services to promote physical fitness and nutrition. Ask the athletic department if they would promote lower-risk drinking messages at all sporting events where alcohol is served. Collaborate with political science or public affairs departments to look at how local laws and policies contribute to or decrease high-risk environments. There are many partnerships you can create across campus to promote health and wellness. Doing so will provide important information to a much larger audience and, hopefully, improve the overall health of your campus community.