SCSU Today

No smoking at my place

Thursday, January 1, 2009

St. Cloud State and St. Cloud Technical College are collaborating on a study designed to determine whether there are differences in students’ smoking behavior/susceptibility based on, among other variables, whether they attend a four-year or two-year school. Survey data collected from 2,600 respondents attending the two schools will be used for cluster analysis, a technique that has long been used by the tobacco companies to design marketing messages.

The same technique – cluster analysis – will be used to inform design of a number of non-smoking messages that will then be tested with student focus groups.

A few examples of the findings uncovered by the collaborative study, which is being funded by a Clearway Minnesota grant, include: 31% of student-respondents who smoke want to quit in the next month, 82% of respondents don’t allow smoking in their homes, and 68% of the students who themselves smoke don’t allow smoking in their homes.

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