Communicating public health research with Sarah Jackson, Martin Jarvis and Robert West

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to three generations of tobacco/nicotine researchers: Dr Sarah Jackson and Emeritus Professors Martin Jarvis and Robert West, all from the Department of Behavioural Science and Health at University College London. They discuss a recent editorial, ‘The price of a cigarette: 20 minutes of life?’ – why the message resonated, what was and is difficult to convey in tobacco research, and how the media coverage has changed for tobacco research over the years.

· What the editorial is about [00:56]

· Why the editorial resonated with the public and the media [01:40]

· What messages were difficult to convey to the public [03:05]

· Why the number of ‘20 minutes of life’ has increased since the last estimate and why it is longer for women [07:43]

· Choosing persuasive pieces and soundbites to communicate to the public [12:13]

· The misinterpretation of research in the media and the difficulty in delivering nuance [14:08]

· How the media coverage on tobacco and smoking has changed over the years [16:23]

Dr Sarah Jackson is a Principal Research Fellow within UCL’s Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group. She has authored >100 peer-reviewed articles on nicotine and tobacco. Her research activity focuses primarily on modelling population trends in smoking, evaluating smoking cessation interventions and policies, and advancing the evidence base on vaping. She is President of SRNT Europe, Senior Editor for Addiction, and Social Media Editor for Nicotine & Tobacco Research.

Martin Jarvis is Professor Emeritus of Health Psychology at the Department of Behavioural Science and Health, UCL, having for many years worked with Michael Russell’s smoking research group at the Institute of Psychiatry and then Cancer Research UK’s Health Behaviour Unit. He has researched and published widely on tobacco smoking, with special interests in the role of nicotine, social and family influences on smoking, smoking cessation methods and passive smoking. He was awarded an OBE in 2002.

Robert West is Professor Emeritus of Health Psychology at UCL. He specialises in behaviour change and addiction. He is former Editor-in-Chief of Addiction, and has acted as an advisor to the English Department of Health on tobacco control and currently advises the Public Health Wales Behavioural Science Unit. He helped write the blueprint for the UK’s national network of stop-smoking clinics and is co-founder of the Capability-Opportunity-Motivation, Behaviour (COM-B) model of behaviour, the Behaviour Change Wheel framework for intervention development, and the PRIME Theory of motivation.

Original article: The price of a cigarette: 20 minutes of life? https://doi.org/10.1111/add.16757

Authors praised the seminal work of the late Professor Michael Anthony Hamilton Russell (1932–2009). For further reading on the legacy of his landmark research, see here: https://doi.org/10.1111/add.14043

The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect the views of the host and interviewees and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official positions of the SSA or Addiction journal. The SSA does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of the information in external sources or links and accepts no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of such information.

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