VCU Research
The VTSF has launched an important new initiative
to apply scientific knowledge to the prevention of youth tobacco
use. A contract with Virginia Commonwealth University will bring
researchers and practitioners together to translate research into
practice.
For the past four years, VTSF has funded the Virginia
Youth Tobacco Projects (VYTP) to further scientific understanding
of why many youths take up the tobacco habit, while other individuals
and groups avoid tobacco use. And yet, translating research into
effective prevention practices is a major, recurrent problem for
public health – largely because of poor communication between
researchers and practitioners. VTSF has made significant progress
in improving this situation here in Virginia. These efforts culminated
in March 2006 with a major conference in Richmond: The VYTP Forum
for Youth Tobacco Use: Translating Research into Practice.
In the new initiative over the next three years,
the VYTP will:
1. Identify prevention-delivery settings (e.g.,
schools, healthcare clinics) that offer specific opportunities
to apply research findings.
2. Prepare materials on concepts, strategies, methods, and barriers
to accomplish translation in selected practice settings.
3. Mobilize Research Translation Work Groups of scientists and
prevention practitioners to work toward bridging the science-to-practice
gap.
4. Hold meetings to deliberate issues and generate recommendations
for translation activities in selected tobacco-use-prevention
settings.
5. Prepare and disseminate manuscripts, conference presentations,
continuing education curricula, CD-ROMs, and Web-based tools to
advance research translation activities.
6. Prepare the groundwork for a Prevention Trials Network in Virginia.
7. Organize another VYTP Research to Practice Conference (2009).
Through these efforts VTSF will continue to
build a national model for state-funded research on the causes
and prevention of youth tobacco use.
For more information on these initiatives
contact Dr. Earl Dowdy at
(804) 827-0553.
