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International

The tobacco industry is like an intelligent and aggressive ever-evolving pathogen that accounts for one-third of all cancer and nearly two-thirds of heart disease among people under 55. To reduce this burden of disease requires understanding how the tobacco industry maintains a social and policy environment favorable to smoking. To understand a pathogen, one might study its genetic code.

Eastern Europe Center of Excellence for Nurses in Tobacco Control (EE-COE), is a collaboration between the International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care, UCSF & UCLA Schools of Nursing, and partners from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Romania. The EE-COE partners have developed, and are currently implementing educational activities in each of the five countries. The goal of this collaboration was to build capacity among nurses in general practice and in oncology to implement evidence-based interventions with all patients who smoke.

In this randomized trial at middle schools in Indonesia, we test the effectiveness of asking students to commit individually or in pairs to not smoking cigarettes. The study results will indicate whether a social penalty can motivate students to refrain from smoking; identify the magnitude of peer influence on students’ smoking behavior; and inform anti-tobacco policy in a high-prevalence setting.

Analysis of the tobacco industry efforts to interfere with implementation of the WHO FCTC, currently focused on the tobacco industry interference with implementation of the Protocol on the Illicit Trade of Tobacco Products. As part of the WHO Collaborating Center, provision of support and technical assistance to WHO on implementation of Article 5.3 and its guidelines, i.e. establishing measures to protect tobacco control against the tobacco industry interference.