Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs: A Review and Synthesis of Evaluation Strategies in the United States

This report reviews what several U.S. jurisdictions are doing with respect to evaluating comprehensive tobacco control programs. The authors find an extensive array of evaluation activity taking place in select U.S. jurisdictions. Typically, programs are assessed at the level of infrastructure development, social and environmental change, behaviour change, and health status improvement.

The report illustrates numerous short-term impact indicators related to the goals of protection, prevention, and cessation. Within each goal, there are measures that can be grouped according to intervention (policy, media-based public education campaigns, and community-based interventions), setting (e.g., workplaces and homes), and priority group (e.g., youth). These examples of implementation, process and impact measures related to goals, interventions, settings, and priority groups are a useful resource for jurisdictions developing an evaluation strategy for comprehensive tobacco control programs.