6th National Conference on Tobacco or Health
Tobacco Interventions for High-Prevalence Populations
To access slide handouts from the conference session Tobacco Interventions for High-Prevalence Populations November 2, 2009. Please click here
Transdisciplinary Tobacco Rounds
Transdisciplinary Tobacco Rounds at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto. All presentations occur in the Meeting Centre (room 2029) at 33 Russell Street on the third Friday of each month from 9:00 -10:00 am EASTERN during the academic year. Please mark the upcoming sessions in your calendar: April 16 and June 18 2010. Pre-registration is not required if you would like to join us in person. If you would like to join us via webcast or would like to request a copy of past TTR presentations or audio recordings, please feel free to contact Stephanie Elliott at stephanie_elliott@camh.net or (416) 535-8501 ext.7427
Date: February 19, 2010
Location: Room 2029, 33 Russell Street
Speaker: Martin Stampfli, PhD
Associate Professor
Departments of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, and Medicine
Assistant Dean, Medical Sciences Graduate Program
McMaster University
Title: How cigarette smoke skews immune responses to promote infection
Learning Objectives:
1. Introduction to the importance of lung immune homeostasis
2. Discussion of the impact of cigarette smoke on lung host defense
3. Discussion of the impact of altered host defense to the pathogenesis of smoking-related disease
Previous Rounds: January 2010 - David Hammond, PhD
Presentation Summary:
On January 15th, Dr. Hammond examined the role of cigarette packaging as a marketing tool. He began his presentation with a look at the prohibition of words like “light”, “ultra light” and “mild” which resulted in the use of “replacement” descriptors such as “smooth” or “ultra smooth”, the use of colours, colour gradation and numbers as an indicator of reduced harm. Citing studies that examined smoker’s perceptions of risk related to cigarettes, he showed how these new descriptors employed by tobacco companies operated in much the same way the original banned word did. Prohibition of these terms is therefore insufficient to decrease the false perceptions related to risk as these descriptors act in synergy with product dosing by the smoker and the sensory experience felt by the smoker.
He commented that the “power of the pack” had to do with the frequency of exposure including point of sale, when smokers take out a cigarette and when a pack is put down on a table. In this respect, cigarette packages are like traveling billboards and with regulations related to banning the use of certain words and lifestyle marketing, the pack has become the final communicator available for tobacco companies to win new smokers and maintain current ones.
Other key points regarding packaging included:
- Instead of “plain packaging”, the term “standardized” packaging means that all packs look the same
- Standardized packaging would include restrictions on colour, appearance, size and shape of all cigarette packaging and could result in decreased brand and imagery identification, decreased appeal amongst youth, increased value of health messages and decreased false beliefs in lowered risk of cigarettes
CAN-ADAPTT Seed Grant: Deadline December 18, 2009 at 4:30 pm
We invite collaborative, Canadian researcher-practitioner teams committed to tobacco control to apply for CAN-ADAPTT's Seed Grant Competition. Awards of up to $5,000 are available to facilitate the preparation of a scientific product in tobacco control research. For more information, please click the links to see the CAN-ADAPTT Seed Grant brochure.pdf and the CAN-ADAPTT Seed Grant format.pdf.
We are pleased to announce our June 2009 CAN-ADAPTT Seed Grant recipients:
Sean Barrett (NS) - "The effects of tobacco and nicotine on cigarette craving and self-administration in psychotic and non-psychotic smokers"
Julie Brûlé (Que) - "Smoking cessation counseling practices among Quebec optometrists: a survey on their beliefs, practices and needs in terms of training and educational tools"
Michael DeVillaer (ON) - "Survey of Ontario Addiction Treatment Programs"
John Garcia (ON) - "Practice-based evidence for evidence-informed smoking cessation interventions: A community-based approach to theory building, evaluation and capacity building"
For upcoming TEACH course descriptions and online applications, please visit www.teachproject.ca
For more events, please refer to:
Breaking the Nicotine Connection in 2010, April 14&15, 2010:
ICE Conferences & Learning Opportunities/Miscellaneous Resources:
http://www.ice-rci.org/research_ops/index.cfm
SRNT Calendar of Events:
http://www.srnt.org/meeting/calendar.html
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