Learning Objectives: To identify the range of roles appropriate to the college-level peer educator. To describe the activities and techniques that may be used to promote smoking policy on the college campus. To explain the development and importance of campus-based cessation resources.
Abstract: As part of the ongoing collaboration between the Moorpark (Community) College Student Health Center and Ventura County (CA) Public Health Department, six paid peer educators were hired to work on the three campuses of the Ventura County Community College District. In the first year of the peer educator program, the students took on a variety of roles designed to promote the new (August 2001) Moorpark College smoking policy, which designated seven smoking areas with the rest of the campus smoke-free. The presentation will describe the variety of ways the peer educators interacted with the campus community: the students led cessation groups; conducted one-on-one interventions with smokers; administered smoker surveys; facilitated curriculum inclusion projects with the art, drama, and environmental departments; participated on campus committees; engaged campus clubs on tobacco issues; made classroom presentations; identified appropriate incentives used in all aspects of the program; and provided leadership at the high school on campus. The peers were selected and supervised by the Health Educator hired specifically as part of the tobacco education grant. As part of Student Health Services, the cessation program benefited from the availability of pharmaceutical aids (gum, patch, Zyban, etc.). In spite of the ambiguous legal situation (preemptive language in a state government code that made the college’s extensive smoking policy technically “unenforceable”), gains were made in the campus community’s support of the smoking rules. Two of the peer educators will participate in the presentation.
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