What Is It?
Tobacco free policies were identified by the Injury and Substance Abuse Prevention Action Team as an action, that when combined with other actions in our community, that has a reasonable chance of making a difference in tobacco cessation in our community. The Community Guide to Preventative Services lists adopting tobacco free policies as a best practice to decrease the percentage of adulst who are current smokers. This is a new intervention in our community.
Tobacco free policies (both adopting and enforcing) are a comprehensive community approach to developing tobacco free communities, addressing multiple levels of intervention (individual and environmental). This intervention targets the community, focusing on disparate workers and the public exposed to secondhand smoke in the work place and public places. Implementation of these policies will take place in the community, focusing on disparate workers and public places not covered by the state's smoke-free restaurants and bars law. By focusing on those disparate workers, we aim to address health disparities, supporting those in the most need.
Jackson County Parks & Recreation Department staff pose in front of a tobacco free parks sign
Partners
The partners for this initiative include:
- Jackson County Department of Public Health
- Role: Promote policies, provide cessation classes
- MountainWise
- Role: Lead data collection, guide making the case for policy, seek out potential organizations to adopt policies
- Mountain Projects, Inc.
- Role: Promote policies, provide cessation classes
- Vaya Health
- Role: Promote policies, provide cessation classes
- Harris Regional Hospital
- Role: Promote policies, provide cessation classes
- Law enforcement
- Role: Promote policies, provide cessation classes
Updates
2016 Updates
Well@Work: The county's employee wellness team met with MountainWise to discuss a smokefree buildings ordinance for county buildings. A sample ordinance was drafted and team members met with the Sheriff to begin approaching the subject of going smokefree in the county jail (the last building of county buildings to allow smoking in the county).