Q and A re: Environmental Scans- Tobacco Vape, Kratom and/or CBD Stores

The following was originally published on the Ecco News Page of the NCTTA Website on 9/20/2019 at the following link:  http://ecconews.nctraining.info/q-and-a-re-environmental-scans-tobacco-vape-kratom-and-or-cbd-stores

When prevention providers complete environmental scans at Tobacco Vape, Kratom and/or CBD Stores what is the state expectation on how those are counted? 

Q: Should providers report based on: City, Zip or County? 

A: They can report on any of the metrics, depending on the capacity of the staff and time spent.  If they have less time (or staff), we recommend choosing a zip code, more time (or staff) they could choose county level work.  City work is okay too, depending on the size and city and staffing capacity.

 

Q: Is this type of intervention considered an individual or population based strategy? 

A: It is considered a population based strategy as this is considered one way to collect information that could lead to population level change related to policy, programming and education

 

Q: If no, then they only need to report on the number of stories per the different type.  Is that correct (Tobacco Vape; Kratom;  CBD; Head Shop)? 

A: While this is a population based strategy, they would not count (i.e. a percentage of youth 12-17) reach using the master reach tool.  At a minimum, providers should count how many scans were done per type.

 

Q:  If yes, are they are supposed to reach 90% and utilize the counting reach tool? 

A: Unlike merchant education and tobacco surveys, there is no expectation that 90% of scans are done in a particular area; however, that would be ideal.  Because scans are considered data collection, we cannot adequately say that we will impact a population (for example, reducing youth-ages 12-17 access to tobacco products) by collecting an environmental scan of tobacco vapor products, Kratom, CBD, Head Shop.