DEVELOPING SMOKING CONTROL POLICIES IN SCHOOLS

This paper presents a project to expand smoking control policies in pr imary schools and its evaluation in the city of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain), in a context of high smoking prevalence, late development of s moking control efforts and low social demand for the enforcement of to bacco control policies. The project was launched after new regulations on smoking in public places had been enacted but were judged to be la rgely non-enforced in school settings. It was based on the collection of information on the existing policies towards smoking in primary sch ools and the feedback of the results to the schools, while providing e lements to improve the situation. Emphasis was put on facilitating a p rocess of internal discussion and consensus building within schools in defining policies on smoking. The baseline data showed that actual po licies on smoking were often not explicit, restricted to banning smoki ng by pupils and to non-smoking by adults within the classroom and in some other areas, but that visible smoking by adults was frequent in p rimary schools. The evaluation suggests that the strategy was useful t o prompt change towards more explicit regulations on smoking, increasi ng smoke-free areas, and in expanding the role of schools in smoking c ontrol.