With more than 40 percent of Mississippi homes reporting they now are smoke-free, the Magnolia State leads the nation in many aspects of tobacco control.

These are among findings of a new survey released in early March by Mississippi State.

In 1999, the university’s Social Science Research Center surveyed 3,040 residents about their tobacco use and attitudes as part of an overall evaluation of the state’s tobacco pilot program. A recent follow-up survey provides evidence of changes in the social climate regarding tobacco use, said SSRC director Arthur G. Cosby.

“In one year, Mississippi has experienced some significant changes in the social climate for tobacco control,” said Cosby, also a project investigator.

The follow-up study coincides with the first complete year of the Mississippi Tobacco Pilot Project, a comprehensive tobacco prevention and education program directed by the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi.

“Perhaps the most notable change occurred in our homes,” said research psychologist Robert C. McMillen, who helped design the survey. “In 2000, some 42 percent of Mississippi households surveyed were smoke-free. That compares to less than 26 percent the previous year.”

The percentages mean 148,000 more Mississippi households became smoke free. In other findings, the Mississippi Social Climate Survey finds:

• More than 80 percent of Mississippi adults consider teenage tobacco use a serious problem, up from 75 percent the year before.
• More than 80 percent believe that tobacco company logos should be prohibited on clothing and gear students wear to school, up from 76 percent the previous year.
• More than 77 percent feel tobacco company advertising should be prohibited at sporting and cultural events, up from 72 percent the previous year.

The survey also shows Mississippians often are more progressive in attitudes about tobacco prevention than are other Americans, McMillen said.

Mississippi adults, for instance, are more likely than adults in other states to believe that tobacco should be regulated as a drug (67 percent vs. 58 percent nationally) and more supportive of penalizing stores which sell tobacco to minors (94 percent vs. 91 percent).

Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi is a non-profit coalition of more than 60 statewide governmental and non-governmental agencies and more than 700 local groups. It is funded by an award from the tobacco industry, separate from the state’s historic $4 billion settlement.

For more about the Mississippi Social Climate Survey, visit the SSRC web site at www.ssrc.msstate.edu/.