A Tobacco Control scientific section working group
The MPOWER Research Group on Tobacco Control was formed in the year 2017 with a goal to scale-up global tobacco control research for feeding into policies at regional/country level. The group was set up with the felt need of systematically mapping, identifying and prioritizing research (in terms of national priority) needed to implement the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and MPOWER in LMICs. The group is working on identifying key gaps and challenges in research focusing upon emergence of newer tobacco and nicotine products; tobacco industry interference; smokeless tobacco products; tobacco free generation; undertaking inter-disciplinary, multi-country research; integration of tobacco control with various programs and policies; and write position papers to address the attention of policy makers for marching towards a tobacco free future.
Recent MPOWER achievements:
The working group has generated 7 case studies on industry interference in different domains of tobacco control policy implementation in India.(viewable HERE)
Second, working group has published a position paper in the Indian Journal of Tuberculosis on ‘Fuelling the tuberculosis epidemic: The role of tobacco control in ending the TB emergency’.
A Special issue on Tobacco Control was published in Indian Journal of Tuberculosis (IJT) in 2021 that had a collection of manuscripts covering wide range of topics pertaining to tobacco control. (viewable HERE)
A supplement issue covering the proceedings & scientific abstracts from the National Conference on Tobacco or Health, held in 2021 in India was published in the Indian Journal of Cancer
Pilot projects on tobacco cessation are being implemented in community settings and hospital settings to strengthen the ‘O’ component of MPOWER.