EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Guest Support for Outdoor Smoke-Free Policies within a Homeless Shelter

Jayda Martinez, Midhat Z. Jafry, Tzuan A. Chen, Michael S. Businelle, Darla E. Kendzor, Maggie Britton, Maya Vijayaraghavan and Lorraine R. Reitzel
Additional contact information
Jayda Martinez: Department of Psychological, Health, & Learning Sciences, College of Education, University of Houston, 3657 Cullen Blvd Stephen Power Farish Hall, Houston, TX 77204, USA
Midhat Z. Jafry: Department of Psychological, Health, & Learning Sciences, College of Education, University of Houston, 3657 Cullen Blvd Stephen Power Farish Hall, Houston, TX 77204, USA
Tzuan A. Chen: Department of Psychological, Health, & Learning Sciences, College of Education, University of Houston, 3657 Cullen Blvd Stephen Power Farish Hall, Houston, TX 77204, USA
Michael S. Businelle: HEALTH Research Institute, University of Houston, 4349 Martin Luther King Boulevard, Houston, TX 77204, USA
Darla E. Kendzor: TSET Health Promotion Research Center, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 655 Research Parkway, Suite 400, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA
Maggie Britton: Department of Psychological, Health, & Learning Sciences, College of Education, University of Houston, 3657 Cullen Blvd Stephen Power Farish Hall, Houston, TX 77204, USA
Maya Vijayaraghavan: Division of General Internal Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 1001 Potrero Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA
Lorraine R. Reitzel: Department of Psychological, Health, & Learning Sciences, College of Education, University of Houston, 3657 Cullen Blvd Stephen Power Farish Hall, Houston, TX 77204, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: Roughly 70–80% of adults experiencing homelessness smoke cigarettes. Smoke-free living/workplace policies are an empirically-supported tobacco control intervention. However, homeless shelters may be reluctant to implement smoke-free policies due to fears of it discouraging current/potential shelter guests from taking refuge there. The current study was meant to characterize guest support for on-property smoke-free policies within a homeless shelter with an extant indoor tobacco use ban amongst never smokers, former smokers, and current smokers to provide data on this point. Participants comprised a convenience sample of adult guests of a homeless shelter in Texas (N = 394, 28.2% women; 10.2% former; and 75.9% current smokers). Participant sociodemographics, smoking status, behavioral health diagnoses, and support for two versions of an on-property outdoor courtyard smoke-free policy (one partial, one complete) were assessed. Data were collected in two waves in a repeated cross-sectional design. Overall, 64.0% of participants supported a partial, and 32.0% a full smoking ban. Logistic regressions, controlling for wave of data collection, age, sex, and any additional significant predictors from a semi-adjusted model, examined associations between participant characteristics and policy support. Older participants (OR = 1.024, CI 0.95 = 1.005–1.044), non-veterans (OR = 2.523, CI 0.95 = 1.156–5.506), former smokers (OR = 2.730, CI 0.95 = 1.191–6.258), and those without severe mental illness (OR = 1.731, CI 0.95 = 1.061–2.824) had significantly greater odds of supporting a partial smoking ban. Relative to current smokers, never smokers (OR = 3.902, CI 0.95 = 2.133–7.137) and former smokers (OR = 8.257, CI 0.95 = 3.951–17.258) had significantly greater odds of supporting a complete smoking ban. The implementation of smoke-free living/workplace policies in homeless shelters may enjoy more support from guests—specifically, non-smokers—than anticipated by shelter administrators. Aside from reducing ambient smoke exposure for never and former smokers, these policies can help to reduce ubiquitous smoking cues for those who may want to quit, are undergoing a quit attempt, or are trying to maintain abstinence. Interventionists might partner with shelter guests, particularly smokers, to inform the roll-out of such policies for maximal acceptance and adoption.

Keywords: homelessness; smoking cessation; tobacco control policy; secondhand smoke; environmental tobacco smoke exposure; partial smoking ban (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/4/2408/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/4/2408/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:4:p:2408-:d:753454

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:4:p:2408-:d:753454