The Eliminate Tobacco Use Missouri Initiative hosted tobacco control advocates from Missouri and partners from around the country for a Tobacco Bystander Intervention webinar on November 19, 2020 in honor of Eliminate Tobacco Use Day. Featured speaker Nosse Ovienmhada, the Work-life Wellness Manager from the University of Texas at Austin, discussed tools available to train community members on making bystander approaches when tobacco-free campus policy violations happen.
Bystander intervention is an applicable strategy across multiple issues and is defined as recognizing a potentially harmful situation or interaction and choosing to respond in a way that could positively influence the outcome. Nosse’s remarks helped contextualize bystander intervention as part of tobacco-free campus efforts.
The University of Missouri Wellness Ambassador team also presented a component of their tobacco-free policy violation intervention, which uses Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) to incentivize compliance and provide cessation services to the policy violator.
