New findings address state and community tobacco control policies and practices

A new series of research papers presents key findings of state and community tobacco control research to help guide state and community tobacco control policies and practices. The papers were produced by investigators in the State and Community Tobacco Control (SCTC) Research Initiative and funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute.

RTI International serves as the coordinating center for the initiative by facilitating cross-research opportunities, evaluating the initiative, and disseminating the research findings to key stakeholders, including states and communities.

The series, titled "Advancing the Science of State and Community Tobacco Control," is published as a special supplement in the October 2016 issue of Tobacco Control released online October 3.

"For the past five years, the SCTC Research Initiative has been conducting research on tobacco's effects to provide practical research to advocacy organizations, practitioners, and local, state, and federal policymakers," said Matthew Farrelly, Ph.D., chief scientist in the Center for Health Policy Science and Tobacco Research at RTI and principal investigator of the SCTC Coordinating Center. "These research papers compile important findings relating to tobacco control and show the ongoing efforts of the initiative."

The SCTC Research Initiative consists of seven research projects and a Coordinating Center that study secondhand smoke policies, tax and pricing policies, mass media countermeasures, community and social norms, and tobacco industry marketing and promotion.

The supplement includes an editorial underscoring the need for policy and practice based research, a commentary discussing the importance of state and community tobacco control research investment, and fourteen articles that showcase research findings of the SCTC Research Initiative. The fourteen articles cover a wide range of topics that reflect the complex and dynamic tobacco control landscape in communities across the country, including:

• Smoke-free home interventions
• Marketing of tobacco products on social media
• Tribal smoke-free and taxation policies for commercial tobacco
• Patterns of tax avoidance and evasion
• Retail policies and non-tax pricing strategies to reduce tobacco use
• The impact of price and other tobacco control policies on tobacco product demand and use

"This research initiative ensures that tobacco control practitioners, public health experts and advocates have the latest and best science to guide resources and make a measurable impact," said Meg Riordan, Vice President, Research at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "World class researchers collaborated with state and local health experts, advocacy organizations and attorneys to identify research questions and draw evidence-based solutions."