Coastal Plain Rural Health Network Facilities Go Tobacco-Free

Currently, almost one fourth of S.C. adults smoke cigarettes. It is a direct cause of heart disease and lung cancer; and it is a trigger for asthma, allergies, and other respiratory ailments in children and adults who don’t smoke.

The U.S. Surgeon General, our nation’s top public health official, found that there is “no safe level of secondhand smoke exposure.” Yet, secondhand smoke results in an estimated 580 to 1,030 deaths in South Carolina annually.

As a result of the Surgeon General’s warning and the increasing problem of tobacco use in South Carolina, hospitals and other health center members of the Coastal Plain Rural Health Network wanted to adopt 100 percent tobacco-free policies for buildings and grounds in order to create a healthy environment for their patients, staff and visitors.

Plans were to be tobacco- and smoke-free by November 15, 2007, the day of the Great American Smoke-Out. The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control’s (DHEC) rural health consultant served as a link between the state’s public health agency and the Network. Some of his efforts included:

• Educating the Network Board that the DHEC Division of Tobacco Prevention and Control had assisted other hospitals and health care institutions around the state implement a tobacco- free Policy using a national best practice model; and

• Arranging a meeting between the DHEC Division of Tobacco Prevention and Control, the Chronic Disease Health Educators from the two DHEC Regions, and the Coastal Plain Rural Health Network in order for it to learn about and adopt the proven tobacco free policy model.

After the meeting, the Network implemented strategies for successfully making the transition to 100 percent tobacco-free campuses including;

• Deciding to address this controversial project as a group because all of the counties are in tobacco growing areas;

• Providing appropriate no smoking/smoke-free signs for each hospital; and

• Providing public relations assistance to its members by helping with articles for local newspapers about this project.

• Four hospitals, 13 health departments, and a community health center had fully implemented its tobacco- and smoke-free policies by January 2008 completely eliminating secondhand smoke exposure for thousands of hospital employees, contractors, patients, and visitors each year;

• The policy change has been accepted reasonably well by the employees, patients, and staff of these institutions.

• Cessation services and referrals are an integral component of new policy changes.