The Ontario Tobacco Research Unit has a long standing, integrated program of knowledge exchange and translation that includes ongoing communications with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and other tobacco control stakeholders, development and dissemination of a variety of knowledge exchange/translation publications, data tools, and training opportunities, including webinars/seminars, and our award winning online course, Tobacco and Public Health: From Theory to Practice.
Each of the areas of study in our annual research and evaluation work plans takes an “integrated knowledge translation” approach to knowledge exchange to ensure that findings are of optimal relevance to knowledge users and their communities, facilitating the translation of knowledge into action.
Stakeholder Engagement Activities
We actively engage stakeholders in refinement of study research questions and study design, development of data collection tools, data analysis and interpretation, and dissemination of findings. Knowledge translation to the broader tobacco control community occurs through interactive webinars and workshops, OTRU online resources and products and academic publication. OTRU’s Principal Investigators (PIs) and Project Leads also share their expertise with numerous provincial, national, and international advisory boards expert panels, and task groups.
OTRU Publications
OTRU evidence-based publications serve a variety of information needs:
- OTRU Updates summarize highlights from recent research and evaluation findings.
- Special Reports provide overviews and syntheses of research in special topic areas.
- Strategy Monitoring Reports analyze the progress of the Smoke-Free Ontario Strategy and document changes in the province’s tobacco control climate.
- Newsletters provide information about current project activities, update communities on local tobacco use statistics and local tobacco control initiatives.
Online Tools
OTRU’s online tools help researchers, students, and the tobacco control community to find tobacco related indicators, sources of survey data, and commonly used survey questions.
The Tobacco Informatics Monitoring System (TIMS) gives easy access to 100’s of key tobacco control indicators related to prevention, protection, and cessation.
Chatterbox is an online glossary of cigarette packaging that explores the culturally informed meanings, or connotations, of the main physical, textual, and visual aspects of cigarette packs.
The Directory of Public Use Data on Tobacco Use provides a comprehensive list of public use survey data on smoking and tobacco use and can help researchers and students in locating high quality Canadian data.
Database of Questionnaire Items is an accessible database of over 1,000 Canadian tobacco related survey questions. The database contains questions gathered from over 50 national, provincial and local population based surveys.
The Tobacco Retail Legislation Database includes descriptions of the regulations, classification of the type of regulations, and identification of the jurisdictions.
Knowledge Transfer through Training
OTRU’s online course, Tobacco and Public Health: From Theory to Practice, provides the opportunity for self-study in major areas of tobacco control: cessation, protection, prevention, and evaluation.
Knowledge Exchange is integral to our work. 
