Dental students help other students to quit smoking

Their project is raising awareness of the harmful effects of smoking on health and signposting other students to the Stop Smoking Service in Plymouth.

Key to the project has been an information gathering exercise which gave the dental students an understanding of others’ knowledge of, and attitudes towards, issues associated with smoking. This highlighted areas such as confusion over how much you need to smoke to be classified as a smoker, the number of students who were already smokers before coming to university, awareness of the availability of local quit smoking services and views on smoking and smokers (half of students would not date someone who smoked).

The students have implemented a campaign across all Plymouth University campuses. A launch event saw them run stalls in the Students’ Union and promote key stop smoking messages across electronic and paper noticeboards around the university. The posters have been designed by the students themselves with the slogan ‘put it out before it puts you out’.