Developing smoking control policies in schools

This paper presents a project to expand smoking control policies in primary schools and its evaluation in the city of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain), in a context of high smoking prevalence, late development of smoking control efforts and low social demand for the enforcement of tobacco control policies. The project was launched after new regulations on smoking in public places had been enacted but were judged to be largely non-enforced in school settings. It was based on the collection of information on the existing policies towards smoking in primary schools and the feedback of the results to the schools, while providing elements to improve the situation. Emphasis was put on facilitating a process of internal discussion and consensus building within schools in defining policies on smoking. The baseline data showed that actual policies on smoking were often not explicit, restricted to banning smoking by pupils and to non-smoking by adults within the class room and in some other areas, but that visible smoking by adults was frequent in primary schools. The evalua tion suggests that the strategy was useful to prompt change towards more explicit regulations on smoking, increasing smoke-free areas, and in expanding the role of schools in smoking control.