Participants and procedure

Three months prior to the implementation of a tobacco-free campus policy at a large, urban university in the Mid-Atlantic US, students and faculty/staff were contacted to complete a survey through REDCap, a web application that can be used to develop and administer surveys^20,21. The policy banned tobacco products of all types on college grounds inside and outside, with a number of limited designated smoking areas allowed. The research team contracted with a university-affiliated research group to enroll participants and distribute the survey. A disproportionate stratified random sampling design was used to select a representative subset of the university’s student and faculty/staff population. The survey consisted of demographic questions alongside questions related to tobacco. Seven months following the implementation of the policy (i.e. after July 2019, ‘post-policy’), a new set of participants were contacted to complete the same survey that the prepolicy group had completed. The study procedures were determined to be exempt from the university’s Institutional Review Board, provided the data were collected anonymously from participants.

To be eligible to participate in the study, participants needed to be aged ≥18 years and either currently enrolled or employed at the university. A total of 3566 students and faculty/staff from the university participated in the study, consisting of 1636 (45.9%) students and 1930 (54.1%) faculty/ staff. Specifically, 636 students and 1356 faculty/ staff completed the survey prior to the policy implementation. After policy implementation, 1000 students and 574 faculty/staff completed the survey.