A qualitative study of the process of adoption, implementation and enforcement of smoke-free policies in privately-owned affordable housing.

Background: Household smoke-free home rules cannot fully protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke (SHS) if they live in multi-unit housing (MUH). Instead, property-level smoke-free policies are needed to prevent SHS incursion into apartment units and to keep common areas smoke-free. Smoke-free policies are usually at the discretion of property management companies and owners within the context of market-rate and privately-owned affordable housing in the U.

Implementation and enforcement of smoke-free policies in public housing.

Smoke-free policies such as those required by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development have the potential to reduce persistent income-related disparities in secondhand smoke exposure. To understand the implementation and enforcement process, as well as barriers and facilitators to compliance and enforcement, we conducted semi-structured interviews (n=37) with representatives from 23 Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) with some level of smoking restriction in place, along with residents from 14 of these PHAs, from January to August 2016. Residents were typically notified of the new policy through group meetings, new resident orientations and/or one-on-one discussions during lease renewal or annual recertification.

Developing Smoke-Free Policies in Public Housing: Perspectives From Early Adopters in 2 Southern States.

Purpose And Objectives: In 2016, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a new rule requiring smoke-free policies in conventional public housing by July 2018 (HUD, 2016). This process evaluation describes the policy development experiences of conventional and nonconventional public housing authorities (PHAs) in North Carolina and Georgia that had established smoke-free policies before the HUD rule.

Intervention Approach: HUD began to issue guidance that encouraged smoke-free policies in public housing in 2009, and most early adopters were outside of the Southeast.