Ramzi Salloum received a conference grant from the National Cancer Institute to support global tobacco control implementation science at the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco Annual Meeting.
This spring, a team of University of Florida researchers engaged with researchers from low- and middle-income countries at a major conference on nicotine and tobacco science.
The Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) is the only international scientific membership society dedicated exclusively to the field of nicotine and tobacco research. As a scientific society, SRNT’s mission is to stimulate the generation and dissemination of new knowledge concerning nicotine and tobacco products. This information exchange is accomplished primarily through the SRNT Annual Meeting, which is the main venue for sharing novel findings from global tobacco control research and for networking among scientists in the field.
While the vast majority of the world’s tobacco users live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), global tobacco control and LMIC-based science are underrepresented at its annual meeting. Further, the promotion of implementation science is needed to close the critical implementation gap in global tobacco control.
Accordingly, Ramzi Salloum, PhD, an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics, and the co-chair of the SRNT Global Research Network, led the submission of a successful National Cancer Institute conference grant to increase the participation of LMIC-based researchers and elevate the visibility of global tobacco control research and implementation science at the SRNT 2024 Annual Meeting that took place in Edinburgh, Scotland from March 20-23.
Through the $25,000 grant, the network organized a pre-conference workshop and awarded six travel scholarships to scholars from 6 different LMICs. The awardees presented their global tobacco control dissemination and implementation research at the pre-conference workshop. The workshop also featured other global tobacco control researchers, who engaged in discussions on tobacco dependence treatment and policy.