Using evidence synthesis to combat tobacco addiction: the work of the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group
Dr. Nicola Lindson
University of Oxford (UK)
Dr. Nicola Lindson is a senior researcher based within the Oxford Tobacco Addiction Group (OxTAG) within the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford, UK. She has been involved in smoking cessation research since 2008, when she started her PhD as part of the newly formed UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies (UKCTCS). Nicola conducted her first Cochrane Review more than 13 years ago and has been a Managing Editor of the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group since 2015. She is the co-lead of the Cochrane living systematic review of ‘Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation’, and is involved in a variety of tobacco-related research topics, including smoking reduction, pharmacotherapies for smoking cessation, and improving smoking cessation support for people in lower socioeconomic groups to reduce health inequalities.
Keynote abstract
The Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group (CTAG) was launched at the University of Oxford in 1996, as one of the first Cochrane Review Groups. For the last 27 years CTAG has been producing systematic reviews of the tobacco control evidence with the aims to 1) inform tobacco control policy internationally; 2) inform tobacco control research, ensuring it is focused on important unanswered questions; and 3) contribute to reducing tobacco use. This keynote will detail how we have achieved this through an overview of CTAG’s work. This will include case studies of some of our most influential reviews, including one of the first ever Cochrane Reviews (on NRT for smoking cessation) and more recent reviews using novel methodologies, such as living evidence synthesis and component network meta-analysis. There will also be reflection on what is needed to strengthen the evidence base on e-cigarettes and the future of evidence synthesis in tobacco control.