A Global Platform
Lecture series connects expanding audience with expert voices
IGTC’s monthly Innovations in Tobacco Control lectures achieved significant new growth in recent months, drawing attendees from nearly 60 countries—as well as more than 500 subsequent video views—to thought-provoking talks from global researchers and experts on key issues in tobacco control.
In September 2024, San Diego State University’s Thomas E. Novotny spoke on “Paddling Upstream to Prevent Tobacco Pollution.” Addressing a hybrid audience of Zoom participants and in-person attendees at the Bloomberg School, Dr. Novotny discussed the environmental evidence surrounding commercial cigarette filters that could support efforts to ban their sales, reduce use, and denormalize smoking. The University’s student-run newspaper covered the event with a feature story.
October welcomed Pinpin Zheng of Shanghai’s Fudan University for a riveting talk entitled “Changes in Tobacco Control in China Over the Past 10 Years.” Attesting that “social norms act as a mediator in the pathway from smoke-free policy to smoking behavior,” Dr. Zheng’s presentation focused on the role of public health amidst a continuously evolving policy and public perception landscape, in a country that is also the world’s largest producer and consumer of tobacco.
And a record-breaking 171 unique online viewers tuned in for November’s lecture by Anna Gilmore, founding director of the Tobacco Control Research Group and co-director of the Centre for 21st Century Public Health at the University of Bath. Her talk, “Assessing Progress in Tobacco Control: Time to Learn Lessons from the Commercial Determinants of Health?” explored how evidence of the human and planetary health impacts from commercial entities can inform tobacco control policymaking and controls to prevent corporate influence on science. Dr. Gilmore also elaborated on these points during an interview published in the Johns Hopkins News-Letter.
This winter/spring, four additional lectures have been planned to serve the increasing interest in important topics such as these:
- January 23, 2025: Attracting Top Talent to Tobacco Control—The School for Moral Ambition (Marit van Lenthe, MD)
- February 26, 2025: Advancing Tobacco Control in China (Qinghua Nian, PhD)
- March 20, 2025: Availability of Flavor Capsule Cigarettes at Points of Sale in Quito (Attila Pohlmann, PhD)
- April 8, 2025: Mutual Learning, Mobilizing Hope & Capacity Building in Tobacco Control (Stephen Tamplin, MSE)
Explore past speakers and lecture topics in our YouTube video archive.