This project involves three key activities: data collation, analysis, and dissemination.

Data collation

In collaboration with leading organizations involved in tobacco control research, we bring together a broad range of data pertaining to tobacco control policies, tobacco pricing and taxation, and smoking indicators and related health outcomes.

  • Tobacco control policies: drawing from existing databases, we collect information on tobacco control policies and programs for each country, including legislation pertaining to specific objectives and principles of the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC).
  • Tobacco pricing and taxation: information from WHO World Tobacco reports, national tobacco control offices, Euromonitor, industry reports, and country-specific sources, such as manufacturer databases, is extracted to generate trends in tobacco pricing and taxation rates.
  • Smoking indicators and related health outcomes: results from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study are either directly applied or used to inform estimates of smoking prevalence, initiation, and cessation; tobacco consumption; and rates of early death and disability from diseases associated with smoking.

Impact assessment

Drawing from an extensive database on tobacco policy packages, we are evaluating the impact of different control measures on a number of smoking indicators and health outcomes. These outcomes include smoking prevalence, initiation, and cessation; tobacco consumption; and rates of mortality and disability from conditions associated with smoking, such as cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and cancers.

After identifying the statistical relationships between tobacco control initiatives and outcomes, we are conducting counterfactual analyses, estimating trends in smoking indicators and health loss in the absence or presence of different control policies.

Forecasting

Using the results from the impact assessment, we are updating and expanding upon IHME’s current time series on smoking prevalence. With our improved understanding of tobacco control policy effects, our estimates of tobacco use and consumption have become more robust and more accurately reflect country-level smoking trends in relation to changes in policy.

We are also generating 25-year predictions for a subset of tobacco-related health outcomes, including all-cause adult mortality and deaths attributable to smoking. These efforts allow us to construct alternate forecasting scenarios for tobacco indicators based on the relative impact of different tobacco control policies. For instance, one scenario shows trends in mortality and smoking use based on current trends and legislation, whereas another forecasts likely trends in outcomes if more aggressive tobacco control policies were implemented. The previous step, the policy impact assessment, serves as the empirical foundation for predicting the relationship between types and levels of tobacco control legislation and corresponding changes in smoking rates.

Dissemination

Working closely with Bloomberg Philanthropies, we are developing interactive data visualization tools and executing policy-focused dissemination activities to maximize the understanding and uptake of results.