Online Informatics System of Key Outcome Indicators to Support Tobacco Control Planning, Surveillance and Reporting

Background and Challenges to Implementation: Formative research suggested that many stakeholders do not have ready access to reliable and up-to-date information on population survey results due to a variety or reasons including knowledge, permission to access, technical skills to analyse surveys and cost.

Intervention or Response: A dynamic database-driven informatics website–the Tobacco Informatics Monitoring System, or TIMS–was built with a user friendly and easy-to-navigate front end to facilitate stakeholders’ use of tobacco survey data in their program planning, decision making, surveillance and reporting.

Results and Lessons Learnt: The live site, tims.otru.org, contains over 140 key indicators organized under broad themes including Tobacco Use, Prevention, Cessation, Protection, Public Opinion and Electronic Cigarettes. From these indicators, users can navigate to tens of thousands of unique data points including obtaining results by population (age, sex, education, occupation, income), geography (national, provincial, sub-provincial), and multiple surveys spanning multiple years. Data can be displayed in tables or in line/bar charts, with dynamic capability to sort/group, print, or download into presentation ready results. With the advent of evidence-based decision making, the TIMS site has played a key role in providing up to date information on key outcome indicators.

Conclusions and Key Recommendations: By providing access to regional and national survey results, the TIMS site has the potential to enable new insights into emerging issues and trends. The site facilitates links between health outcome results and the decision making process such as a consideration of health equity issues focusing on priority sub-populations and high-risk geographical areas.