Focusing Tobacco Control Research in Latin America and the Caribbean

Objectives included: identifying tobacco control research priorities for the next 5 years for LAC to promote FCTC implementation at the local, national and regional levels; identifying and describing research initiatives and regional collaboration across countries for the short to mid-term and pinpointing research capacity building priorities. Participants gave priority to the following research themes:

  1. Smokefree environments (SFE): Public opinion in diverse countries of LAC about SFE and evaluation of exposure to second-hand smoke in the region. Evaluation of effective strategies to enact and implement smokefree policies and the tobacco industry strategies to block them. Health and economic impact of implementing smokefree policies.
     
  2. Tobacco economics: Burden of diseases attributable to tobacco; social cost such as loss of productivity (indirect costs) attributable to tobacco. Tobacco demand studies (taxes, price and their impact on consumption and tax revenues). Smuggling and tobacco product counterfeiting.
     
  3. Tobacco industry strategies to block the FCTC proposed policies: Commercial strategies such as advertisement, promotion and sponsorship, new products, and initiatives to counteract effective control. Social marketing strategies and political positioning such as lobbying of policy makers, philanthropy, financing of social programs and the arts, etc.
     
  4. Tobacco cultivation: Evaluation of the environmental, social and economic impact of growing tobacco. Child labor. Diseases that affect workers and socio-economic conditions of families that work in the production of tobacco. Studies about crop diversification and substitution in tobacco growing areas.
     
  5. Tobacco and poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean: socio-cultural and economic factors that determine consumption of tobacco by the poor. Family income sources and tobacco consumption. Evidenced-based tobacco control policies specially directed to reduce consumption among the poor in this region.