Methodology

SAFE best practices repository

The European Joint Action on Tobacco Control 2 -JATC2 was created to strengthen cooperation for tobacco control between Member States and the European Commission.  Within this project, several institutions lead activities to achieve this goal.  

As part of Work Package 8 (WP8) of JATC2, the Tobacco Control Unit of the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) launched an experts’ consultation with the overall goal to gather evidence that will allow Member of States to protect their population from exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke and aerosols produced by electronic cigarettes and other novel products.

The consultation was conducted between June and September 2022 via an online questionnaire.

Identification and selection of experts:

A contact list of expert key informant within fields such as smoke and aerosol free regulation, research, enforcement or NGOs was created. Particularly, the goal was to identify and select between 3 and 4 national experts per country for a total of 30 European countries.

Designing, programming and testing of the online questionnaire: 

The online questionnaire used in the consultation was designed using a previously created core questionnaire that was formulated by Work Package 4 (WP4) of JATC2 as the main source. The questionnaire consisted of 2 sections and had a total of 60 questions on barriers and opportunities as well as on relevant policies and best practices to achieve smoke and aerosol free environments.

The questionnaire was programmed using Survey Monkey and was tested by different WP8 partners before the oficial launch and invitation to experts.

Survey filling out and data collection:

Each expert key informant was asked to provide information of up to 4 best practices. Follow-up on data collection was done on a weekly basis.

Data management and analyses:

First, quality and completeness of data was analysed, second, data extraction and description was conducted and lastly, a revision of each practice reported was done followed by a summary sheet and scoring. The scoring process was completed by 2 reviewers by practice following the Guidance on Best Practices from WP4.

The summary sheet  for each practice organises the information into the following subchapters:

  1. Objective, relevance and target setting of the practice
  2. Description of the practice, scope and type of practice
  3. Target population
  4. Equity
  5. Ethical considerations
  6. Evaluation
  7. Transferability
  8. Sustainability
  9. Involvement and participation
  10. Responsibility, funding and project management

Selection of practices for the JATC2-WP8 Symposium:

Within the activities of WP8, one the Milestones to achieved was the organisation of a Symposium
that would bring the opportunity to present and further explore some of the practices gathered in the consultation to experts.

The Symposium was planned to take on the 25th of April 2023 as a free pre-activity of the European Congress on Tobacco or Health (ECToH). The following criteria was applied when selecting which practices would be presented in the symposium:

  • Important to have as many different groups of practices as possible to enrich discussion and learning lessons (e.g., sfbeach, sfcars, …. Etc)
  • Representative group of different countries
  • Addressing different types of tobacco or nicotine free policies (smoke, aerosol..)
  • Score of the practice >40
  • Identified innovative measures through the presentation of the practice
  • Previous formal evaluation