Schroeder Institute

The mission of the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies is to conduct tobacco control research that has a clear and specific public health impact, meeting a pressing knowledge gap in a timely manner. The focal point is to strengthen the science of tobacco control implementation, dissemination, and policy to optimize public health impact. With strong established infrastructure and resources from the American Legacy Foundation, the SI supports a “high risk, high reward” research model of collaborative, transdisciplinary “team science”. Investigators pursue cutting-edge research initiatives that may be difficult to pursue in traditional research settings.

The twofold vision of the SI is 1) to stimulate innovative research ideas in tobacco control, from basic and applied science to policy, and 2) to conduct cutting-edge research that has clear and specific public health impact in reducing smoking prevalence.

1. Stimulate innovative research ideas in tobacco control

The SI works collaboratively to stimulate research that will reduce tobacco use prevalence more efficiently. Our aim is to serve a convening “think-tank” role to speed high risk innovative new research priorities. Science must keep pace with a rapidly changing landscape of scientific discovery, technological advancements, consumer demands, and dramatic shifts in tobacco industry products and marketing. We work with the research and practice communities, public, private, government, insurers, policymakers, philanthropy and other stakeholders to support an innovative and forward-thinking research agenda.

• Research Strategies to Inform FDA Regulation of Tobacco Products
• Online Social Networks and Smoking Cessation: Strategic Research Opportunities

2. Conduct cutting-edge research that has clear and specific public health impact in reducing smoking prevalence.

Reducing tobacco use prevalence will require advances in both the basic and applied science of dissemination. Perhaps the most pressing challenge to the field is to understand how to move basic and clinical research out of the laboratory and into the real-world more effectively and efficiently to inform a coherent, unified national cessation strategy. Research at the SI focuses on increasing the motivation and demand for cessation treatments among smokers, and developing and evaluating a range of flexible and efficient cessation treatment interventions.  Current projects include:

• Internet and Telephone Treatment for Smoking Cessation
• Comparative Effectiveness of Web-based Mobile Support for the DC Tobacco Quitline
• Recruiting Latino Smokers via the Internet: The Feasibility of Online Advertising