The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: Tobacco control would benefit from greater integration of research, practice and policy. Achieving integration depends upon having sufficient research capacity and linking that capacity to practice and policy needs. At present, research capacity is often limited, inequitably distributed, and/or poorly integrated across disciplines and sectors.

Methods: The Canadian Tobacco Control Research Initiative funded a pan-Canadian initiative to enhance tobacco control research capacity in Canada. This presentation will describe one project within this initiative. Our project uses strategic training and recruitment, the development of a data repository, tools and resources and the creation of “Communities of Research and Practice” to enhance the number, size and distribution of interdisciplinary, multi-sectoral research teams.

Results: We will describe our framework for capacity enhancement, how it is being operationalized, comprehensively evaluated and lessons learned to date. For example, combining networking opportunities with small seed grants, as well as funding for skilled personnel development and exchange have produced many new interdisciplinary collaborations. Offering opportunities that recruit students to the team is an effective way to engage their supervisors. The creation of a repository for sharing proprietary data and a virtual “shopping mall” for researchers, program providers and policy makers has enhanced knowledge exchange and research productivity. The technical foundation for sharing proprietary data and the creation of protocols that balance access with investigators' right to control their data has been easier than expected. However, developing protocols that allow for secondary analysis of proprietary data in a manner that maintains participant confidentiality has been a challenge.