Survey Searches for Businesses Offering Tobacco Cessation Help

Source from:  Ross Flint rflint@reportert.com June 30, 2008  07/01/2008

In a continuation of a survey conducted earlier this year, Ready Set Quit! Tobacco is seeking to determine the extent of smoking cessation programs at Morgan County businesses. Jennifer Walker, project coordinator of Ready Set Quit Tobacco, said she hopes the survey, available at the Healthier Morgan County Initiative Web site, will provide information from both local businesses that did and didn't participate in the first survey. The expanded survey was posted last week. Thirty-eight businesses participated in the initial survey, most of them members of the Martinsville and Mooresville chambers of commerce. The survey was an attempt to gather information on which businesses allow smoking inside and outside of the establishment, which businesses would like to go smoke-free and which of those that allow smoking provide designated smoking areas, Walker said. The new survey asks businesses to provide information on what smoking cessation services are available for employees who smoke. Walker is hopeful businesses interested in providing those services, but haven't yet will take advantage of classes offered by the program, which can be done on-site. Tool kits are also available, she said. "We'd like to learn who would like to go smoke-free," she said. "It might even start a conversation among those who might have started thinking about doing this." All 38 businesses that responded to the initial survey are smoke-free inside their building, but only about four or five have smoke-free grounds, she said. The reason, she said, is that it depends on where the business is located. Businesses located on the downtown square can't control what people do outside the building. The original survey was sent to businesses in December. A poll done in January by the Indiana Campaign for Smokefree Air, a statewide coalition of community and health groups, found that 59 percent of Indiana residents support a law that would prohibit smoking in public places. Forty-seven percent said they strongly support one, while 26 percent said they strongly opposed. In that poll, 78 percent said they believe workplaces should protect employees from secondhand smoke in the workplace, while 20 percent disagreed. Enditem