Critical reflections on the field of tobacco research: The role of tobacco control in defining the tobacco research agenda

Abstract

In recent years, tobacco research, as a field of investigative practices, has come to be seen as a major contributor to broader tobacco control efforts and a 'significant component of the global health agenda' (World Health Organization (1999). , questions remain about what the exact nature of the relationship between tobacco research and tobacco control should be. Guided by that central question, this article draws attention to recent attempts to define this relationship, in particular that embodied in the Global Tobacco Research Network (GTRN), in order to facilitate debate on how such definitions attempt to shape the research agenda. Throughout, the main critical focus will be the attempt to generate characterizations of the field, through entities like the GTRN, which relate tobacco-related research practices vis-à-vis their relationship to tobacco control. It is argued that such characterizations present a distorted and oversimplified picture of how we might assess the empirical work we find across the field as a whole. Tracing these difficulties back to the narrow normative position embodied within the GTRN and World Health Organization approach to tobacco research, the article concludes by arguing that there is a need to recognize, rather than correct for, the overlapping and diverse bodies of work which the study of tobacco-related questions has helped establish.

Tobacco plain packaging: Evidence based policy or public health advocacy?

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