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The Institute for Global Tobacco Control (IGTC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health will host an in-depth research and leadership training program in conjunction with the 13th World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH).
A fundamental theme for the conference will be capacity building for the implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The FCTC has now been ratified by over 50 countries, over half of which are low- and middle-income countries, and by the time of the conference this number is likely to be much larger. While ratification is a remarkable achievement, significant barriers to the treaty’s long-term success remain in low- and middle-income countries. These barriers include: a lack of locally relevant evidence and data gathering/surveillance infrastructure; inadequate expertise in relation to some areas of research, health systems development, and policy formation and implementation; and insufficient networking and leadership. For many countries, a lack of capacity may be a choke point that could hold back implementation.
The WCTOH provides a key venue for addressing these critical capacity building needs. However, experience has shown that simple one-time travel scholarships to low- and middle-income country researchers to attend large international conferences rarely result in true capacity development at the country level. Instead, researchers require sustained attention in the form of technical training, mentorship, exposure, and financial investment. Therefore, in conjunction with the 2006 WCTOH the IGTC will host an intensive training program for researchers from low- and middle-income countries party to the FCTC. The program will focus on building a cohort of well-trained and well-networked researchers capable of carrying out research relevant to the future implementation of the FCTC in low- and middle-income countries.
The IGTC is in a prime position to develop and lead this novel program. The location and timing of the 2006 WCTOH provide significant opportunities for researchers to take advantage of Johns Hopkins’ top quality educational programs, including its online tobacco control course and the school’s world renowned Summer Institute in Epidemiology and Biostatistics which concludes only days before the opening of the conference. The IGTC’s new distinction as an official World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for Tobacco Control and its active partnerships throughout the world allow it to rapidly integrate new quality researchers into the established international tobacco control network.
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