Roswell Park Team Will Co-Lead $10 Million National Cancer Institute-Funded Global Tobacco Study

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of three lead centers  part of an international multicenter team that has recently been awarded $10 million to study how tobacco control policies impact smoking, vaping and the use of other nicotine products.

Scientists from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Medical University of South Carolina and the University of Waterloo (Canada) are leading this five-year international study funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which will evaluate the behavioral and long-term health impact of different regulatory approaches to e-cigarettes and other new nicotine products among youth and adults in seven countries.

The market for tobacco products has expanded rapidly in the past decade as e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products and other new nicotine products are now available in addition to cigarettes and cigars. Countries around the world have taken different approaches to regulating these new products, with some governments encouraging smokers who can’t quit to switch to these products and others adopting more restrictive policies, hoping to reduce use by nonsmoking youth who might become addicted to them.

Andrew Hyland, PhD, Chair of the Department of Health Behavior at Roswell Park and a principal investigator of the research at the center of this initiative, is co-leading a study comparing patterns of tobacco use among teens and adults in seven countries selected because of varying regulatory approaches to the marketing and sale of tobacco products (the United States, Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan). Dozens of investigators will collaborate on four interrelated projects designed to assess the direct and unintended effects of the tobacco regulatory policies that have been implemented.  

The study builds on the work of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project, known as the ITC project (https://itcproject.org/), which for nearly 20 years has conducted research on the impact of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control — a health treaty adopted by over 180 countries aimed at reducing the global harms of tobacco use. The ITC Project has conducted studies across 31 countries, contributing to the evidence base to support government-mandated product marketing regulations such as health warnings, tobacco taxes, clean indoor air rules and standardized packaging. 

“With the rapid evolution of potentially lower-risk nicotine products now entering the marketplace, the need for evidence to shape regulatory policies is more significant than ever,” says Dr. Hyland. “By learning from the experiences of different countries with different regulatory approaches, our research will yield important evidence on the impact of e-cigarettes and other emerging nicotine products that will inform U.S. public policy, with the goal of improving population health.”

Also collaborating on this international research effort are scientists from Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion, Georgetown University, King’s College London and the University of Melbourne (Australia).