The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: Tobacco-related research has been, and will continue to be, a key weapon in the battle against tobacco use and the tobacco industry tactics. Yet, given the importance of research in tobacco control, in most cases, there is no existing conduit for the research findings published in the scientific literature to be “translated” and disseminated among tobacco control professionals and the larger public health community. The Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program – California's state research funding program - has created the Tobacco Research Translation Institute (TRTI) as a conduit to facilitate the translation of empirically validated research in the peer reviewed literature for public health application.

Methods: The TRTI staff works with expert scientist and tobacco control professionals to design and produce information toolkits. The toolkits provide a summation of key points from research article published in the peer reviewed literature that can be readily used in tobacco control and by policy makers. The use and application of the toolkits by tobacco control professionals is routinely evaluated in order to improve design and usefulness.

Results: This paper will describe the theoretical underpinning of the TRTI, the process that has been developed to produce the toolkits, and how this process can be replicated by tobacco control organizations or research institution. In addition, the presentation will provide data from the TRTI evaluation and discuss lessons learned.