Use of a Living Lab Approach to Implement a Smoke-Free Campus Policy

Abstract

While universities have increasingly become tobacco-/smoke-free, to our knowledge, no campus has reported 100% policy compliance. Innovative approaches to encourage compliance and ongoing data collection are needed. This paper describes actions undertaken, framed within a Living Lab (LL) approach, to implement smoke-free campus policies in an Irish university. The action research comprised student-collected data on observed smoking on campus to evaluate adherence and compliance, first to a smoke-free zones policy (June 2016–March 2018), and then to a smoke-free campus policy (March 2019–February 2020). From June 2016–February 2020, 2909 smokers were observed. Adherence, defined as the average reduction in number of observed smokers from baseline in May 2016 from 5.7 to 4.9 was 79% (Compliance, defined as the proportion of smokers who complied when reminded of the policy, was 90% (2610/2909). Additional activities included development of a broader health promotion programme; identification of a pattern of ‘social smoking’; and promoting increased awareness of the environmental harms of tobacco. Ongoing policy implementation is essential for smoke-free policies and should include data collection and evaluation. Actions framed within the characteristics of a LL achieved fewer observed smokers. A LL approach is recommended to encourage policy adherence and compliance.

Knowledge Innovation Ecosystem for the Promotion of User-Centre Health Innovations: Living Lab Methodology and Lessons Learned Through the Proposal of Standard Good Practices

“…Hence this methodology strives to understand complex human environments and processes, obtain information about particular situations, introduce changes, observe the effects of their intervention and enhance scientific knowledge by developing new models and theories [75] and producing guidelines for best practices [106]. Although AR emerged as an established social sciences research method, its effectiveness was also demonstrated in the LL context, as shown in previous research [107, 108]. According to Schaffers et al [109], the strength of the alliance between AR and LLs is due to the KIE’s openness and cooperation, complex social processes, and the need to introduce changes into these processes and observe the effects during the process.…”

Perspectives of Environmental Awareness in University Students

“…The combined contribution shows that there is proportion between students, teachers, administrative staff and green areas that represent environmental awareness to reduce high pollutant waste on university campuses whose impact is greater on society (Budihardjo et al, 2021), as university students demonstrate knowledge of waste classification (Yang et al, 2021) effect of policies that each university implements to collect data and perform their respective analysis (Mullin et al, 2023). Air pollution is shown to impact health negatively, so plans, controls and laws should continue to be implemented to protect the environment (Ullah et al, 2021) and can be achieved through environmental awareness that achieves a direct impact (An et al, 2022) from educational institutions (Krasilnikova & Kuznecova, 2021) as students manage to become aware of the environment and decide to take more drastic measures in effective habits to minimize pollution (Amador-Alarco n et al, 2022), which shows much value in environmental awareness (Makhtar et al, 2021).…”

“…The accelerated growth of the urban population has resulted in increased waste generation and environmental problems related to water quality, toxic gas emissions and contaminated soils (Abegaz et al, 2021), for such reason it is necessary to mention higher education students who are seen as the key actors of social change, therefore, their environmental knowledge is fundamental to solve the threat posed by solid waste and other environmental problems in their community (Owojori et al, 2022), furthermore, effective waste management strategies applied by many universities are recognized efforts to achieve sustainability (Budihardio et al, 2021), similarly, fellow students are believed to be the driving force for future sustainability and environmental awareness (Yang et al, 2021), certainly, the study of factors that reduce solid household waste of university students result in the proposal of new policies to manage waste in universities (Pan et al, 2022), with respect to air quality, university campuses are increasingly free of tobacco smoke, but as far as it is known, no university is 100% free of this pollutant (Mullin et al, 2023), It is necessary to emphasize that air pollution is associated with a large number of physical, mental and behavioral health risks, and 153 million premature deaths worldwide are also attributed to it (Ullah et al, 2021), on the other hand, another problem recognized worldwide as an environmental, health and aesthetic problem is anthropogenic marine debris (Cárdenas-Farfán et al, 2022). During the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, several facilities developed recommendations that maximize environmental quality within their facilities, practically the pandemic raised awareness of air quality risks in the daily environment (Coronado et al, 2022), also governments have played a key role during the pandemic by sharing environmental and health information with the public (An et al, 2022).…”