The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: Effective exchange of knowledge among researchers, health practitioners, and policy makers is essential to tobacco control, yet relatively few avenues exist to facilitate this process. One option is creating a community of practice (CoP): voluntary, self-organized networks of individuals and organizations tied together by common practices and interests. The process of creating a community of practice within the Web-assisted tobacco intervention (WATI) community is discussed in relation to a six-month evaluation of the impact of a meeting aimed at exploring common interests among WATI researchers and promoting knowledge exchange and innovation.

Methods: Evaluation data was collected at baseline, 3-weeks and six-months following the meeting held in June 2005 using paper and web-surveys. Expectations and WATI experience was collected at baseline, while outcomes such as perceived value, collaborative opportunities, and knowledge of WATI research. Participants also outlined their current WATI collaborative networks at baseline and 6-months.

Results: Participants reported increased knowledge, exchanges with colleagues met at meeting, sharing information with others, and making efforts to contact other WATI meeting attendees. Over half of the participants took action on ideas generated from the WATI meeting. A social network model of the data indicated that the initial baseline network was sparse, and not highly interconnected. There was also little evidence of transdisciplinary collaboration among the group. Community building took place incorporating this data over the course of one year. Evaluation data showed substantial changes in the network shape, size and configuration and behavioural shifts in collaboration-related activities.