What is public health? Students in the UGA Health & Wellness class are here to help you find out! They have strategically identified examples in the Athens community that they feel represent public health in action. This blog is dedicated to explaining, understanding, and discussing what their interpretations of public health, as well as their reactions to learning about topics of health and wellness.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Smoke Free Buildings on Campus

This graphic appears on all of UGA's buildings. As a smoke free campus, UGA is attempting to protect people from tobacco smoke.  Smoking is not only dangerous for the smoker, but also those around the smoker. As we learned in class, there is 2nd hand smoke, which occurs when tobacco smoke permeates any environment, causing its inhalation by people within that environment. Frequent exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke can cause disease, disability, and death. There is also 3rd hand smoke which includes the remnants on surfaces after "second-hand smoke" has cleared out. Nationwide, nearly 450 colleges and universities, including more than a dozen in Georgia, have completely banned smoking, outdoors as well as inside. It is important for people to see this as public health because smoking affects everyone around campus. 
Lydia Simms
Alexis Diamond 
Ben Bissell
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 2, 2012 at 10:03 AM

    According to the CDC, the percentage of smoking adults has been decreasing since 1965. I think it is important for place like stores and buildings to have signs like this because for smoking rates to decline, measures like this have to be taken. Smoking has so many health effects that even stopping smoking in a building can decrease the amount that a person smokes in one day. I think any measure like this that can be taken is great to begin to decrease smoking rates and decrease second-hand exposure for people who do not wish to be around those who do smoke.

    Sarah Sanderson
    Joel Roebuck
    Nicole DeLange

    ReplyDelete
  2. MegNovember 28, 2012 at 8:31 AM

    I agree that is it very important for people to realize that UGA is a smoke free university - meaning you cannot even smoke outside on campus. Second hand smoke is becoming more and more of an issue in the US, and it is not fair to people who truly choose not to smoke, or might have a respiratory disease to have to take in the smoke of another person. Although it is a free country, and people who want to smoke should have the right to smoke, they should be more considerate and aware of their surroundings.

    Meg Collins
    Michael Clark
    Haley McBay

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