Buffalo State College is one of seven academic institutions – and 10 sites nationwide – chosen to participate in a National Cancer Institute-sponsored online tobacco use study to test interactive software designed to help college students understand, reduce and stop the use of tobacco.

Administered through the college’s Weigel Health Center, the field study will involve 40 student participants who smoke who will be asked to complete a battery of on-line assessments at four time periods to test the efficacy of software called “MyStudentBody – Tobacco,” designed by Inflexxion, Inc., a scientifically based, multimedia health promotion company. The software allows students to develop a personalized tobacco page relevant to their concerns using a “rate yourself” module. Each student’s page will contain a tailored tobacco profile, articles based on personal risks, peer stories, email features and reminders and written and graphical motivational feedback. Students will be compensated.

The field testing is designed to help software developers finalize the content, interface and interactive features of the website through discussions with an advisory group of college peer educators and tobacco experts. The developers also hope to gather satisfaction data from students and health professional at participating sites.