Objectives

The aim of SILNE is to analyse various “natural policy experiments” within Europe with the aim of generating new empirical evidence on the effectiveness of possible strategies to reduce inequalities in smoking. The project has three parts. First, time trends in various European countries will be analysed with the aim of assessing whether changes in national tobacco control policies had influenced inequalities in smoking cessation among adults. Second, comparisons between European countries will be made with the aim of assessing whether cross-national differences in specific tobacco control policies were associated with inequalities in smoking initiation among adolescents. Third, the project will review the published results of controlled intervention studies, and integrate these with our results. The combined evidence base will be disseminated across Europe, especially among those who are involved in the development of tobacco control policies and health-in-all policies.

This innovative project will develop comparative research into a new strategy for the evaluation of natural experiments, combining methods from different disciplines. Top researchers from different European countries will work together, and bring together four large international networks relevant to inequities in smoking. The overall aim of the project is thus to analyse several “natural experiments” available within Europe in order to generate new empirical evidence to inform strategies to reduce socio-economic inequalities in smoking. The project has three specific objectives:

  1. to assess, using trend analysis for several European countries, whether changes in specific national tobacco control policies since 1990s were associated with changes in socio-economic inequalities in smoking cessation and related factors (WP2 & WP3);
  2. to assess, through comparisons between European countries, whether differences in specific tobacco control policies and in educational systems are associated with differences in socio-economic inequalities in smoking initiation and related factors (WP4 & WP5);
  3. to review the evidence of published intervention studies, to integrate this with the evidence generated in SILNE, and to disseminate the combined evidence across Europe, including those involved in the development of tobacco control policies policies (WP6 & WP7).