Grant: Team Grant: GACD Lung Diseases

The overall purpose of this project (RETRAC2) is to contribute to knowledge about commercial tobacco control interventions that aim to prevent chronic lung diseases in Aboriginal communities in Canada. We will determine the effectiveness of tailored and evidence informed community-developed strategies in reducing commercial tobacco use and assess the implementation factors that contribute to their success. In Canada, First Nations (on and off-reserve), Inuit and Métis Peoples have remarkably high rates of commercial tobacco use and associate chronic lung and other diseases compared to non-Aboriginal groups. RETRAC2 builds on a previous study (RETRAC1), where 7 Aboriginal communities conducted research to understand their community's contexts of tobacco use and develop tailored community commercial tobacco reduction strategies. RETRAC1 included a systematic review of literature and studied Aboriginal communities around the world that had success in reducing commercial tobacco use. RETRAC2 provides opportunity for the 7 RETRAC1 communities to implement and evaluate their interventions and for 6 new Aboriginal communities to conduct community-based research, develop and begin to implement their own commercial tobacco reduction strategies. Developmental evaluation research on implementation factors and successes in these varied contexts will provide rich learning for scaling up the RETRAC approach for routine implementation in Ontario and beyond. Successful reduction of commercial tobacco use in Aboriginal communities will begin to address a historic crisis that is one result of contact /colonization. It is vital to close the very large gap in the relative health burden experienced by Aboriginal as compared to non-Aboriginal people in Canada. Participation in the GACD network will both contribute to RETRAC2 and facilitate dissemination of knowledge gained to prevention of chronic lung disease work in LMICs and amongst vulnerable population in HICs.