We used 2016 to look back on 20 years of the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group (TAG), celebrated the group's achievements and looked to the future.

Here's how we spread the word.....

December 2016

We spent December analysing data from the CTAG taps workshop, and look forward to sharing our findings in the new year! These can be found by clicking here.

November 2016

The NIHR School for Primary Care Research 10 year anniversary showcase; Wellcome Collection, London, UK

The NIHR School for Primary Care Research (SPCR) kindly funded the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group Anniversary project (CTAG taps) in 2016. Therefore, Nicola attended the SPCR 10 yr anniversary showcase in November to present a poster summarising the methods used and findings from the project so far. You can view the poster by clicking on the thumbnail below. The day offered a great opportunity to gain an overview of the range and quality of the research that the school makes possible; which has contributed greatly to the growth of of Primary Care research in the UK.

October 2016

Cochrane Colloquium 2016; Seoul, South Korea

Nicola attended the annual Cochrane Colloquium in Seoul, South Korea and presented on the methods behind the CTAG taps anniversary project. Her slides can be viewed below:

Review paper: Twenty years of the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group

A paper Nicola & Jamie wrote alongside Laura Heath (an academic clinical trainee assisting with CTAG taps) was published 'Online First' this month in Nicotine & Tobacco Research. It is a brief review of the work of Cochrane TAG, providing insight into the origins of the group, its impact on evidence-based medicine, and the goals of the group moving forward. You can access the paper online by clicking here.

Cochrane Community CTAG taps blog

A few months ago Nicola & Jamie chatted to members of the Cochrane central editorial unit about the CTAG taps project and how exactly we carried it out. As part of a series on prioritisation exercises within Cochrane, Ruth Foxlee and her team wrote a blog post about what we did, which you can read by clicking on the image below:

September 2016

After an incredibly busy first half of the year July and August were spent catching up on the core activities of the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group. However, we continued to promote the work of the group and CTAG taps in September!

SRNT Europe 2016

SRNT Europe is the Europe-based annual conference of the Society for Research on Nicotine & Tobacco. This year it was held in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, from the 8th to the 10th September. Jamie and Nicola attended and both presented. Jamie presented on the first update of our review of 'Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation', and Nicola gave a presentation on the first findings from the CTAG taps workshop held in June. Specifically the presentation centred on the delegates' suggestions for the best ways to disseminate evidence in the field of tobacco and smoking cessation. Both sets of slides can be found below:

June 2016

Oxfordshire Science Festival 2016

The Oxfordshire Science Festival is an annual event in Oxford and this year we had a stand at the Festival on Saturday the 25th and Sunday the 26th June. On the Saturday our stand was in the Oxford Town Hall and on the Sunday we had a street stall in the middle of the city. We had a number of activities for all ages to promote the group and the work we do, as well as highlighting the issues associated with smoking and nicotine addiction and the evidence-based ways for people to quit. These included children drawing healthy lungs and making pom-pom men with a healthy message. We also had displays of the toxins present in cigarette smoke and the amount of tar found in the lungs of a 20 a day smoker, and a board for people to write down their quitting experiences, for our older visitors. It proved to be a very successful and fun event where we got to engage with members of the public about the work we do.

Evidence Live 2016

Nicola presented the CTAG taps project at the Evidence Live conference, which took place at the University of Oxford 22-24 June. The masnifesto of Evidence Live is 'Improving the development, dissemination and implementation of research evidence for better health'. Therefore the project fits well within the themes of the day and provided the opportunity to present our methodology to others who may benefit from using the approach. Please find the slides from Nicola's presentation below:

CTAG taps workshop

As part of our 20th anniversary prioritisation project we invited our stakeholders to attend a one day workshop at Somerville College, University of Oxford on the 17th June. You can find out more about both the project and the workshop specifically here and here respectively. Below you can also see the delegate programme (by clicking on the front cover) and a video summarising the day.

UKNSCC 2016

The UK Nicotine & Smoking Cessation Conference is an annual event aimed at people who work in the smoking cessation field and promotes discussion of the very latest in clinical, research and policy developments. This year it was held in London, UK, on the 9th & 10th of June, and our two Managing Editor's, Jamie and Nicola attended with two jobs to do. Firstly they manned a stand to promote the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group, which highlighted our evidence and ways to use this to inform practice. Some of the materials they used to do this can be found on the 'Resources' page.

Secondly they carried out a workshop session where they explained the work of the group, how to use systematic reviews to inform practice, and included a workshop session on future group priorities, designed to be a mini version of the CTAG taps workshop. The slides for this session can be found below:

May 2016

Today (the 31st May) is World No Tobacco Day. Each year to highlight this day we publish a collection of our reviews which are available to access for free. This year we have done the same, and have updated our list with new reviews, including our review of legislative smoking bans and our update of nicotine agonists for smoking cessation. This year World No Tobacco Day is themed around plain packaging. We have an author team that are currently working on a review of the evidence and our collection also contains a link to the protocol of this review, so that you can keep abreast of the developments. You can access our special collection by clicking here.

April 2016

Nicola Lindson has been involved with a lot of public and patient involvement activity this year. Much of which has been linked to the Cochrane TAG 20th anniversary prioritisation project. She wrote a blog post for the group's departmental blog talking about this work and its value here.

March 2016

Wow March was a busy month for us!

Jamie Hartmann-Boyce wrote a post for our department (Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences; University of Oxford) blog on attending the Society for Research on Nicotine & Tobacco Conference, Chicago. We were publicising our prioritisation survey there. Click here.

Ben Cranfield is working with Cochrane TAG during March & April 2016, helping us with the 20th Anniversary Prioritisation project (CTAG taps). He wrote a post for the departmental blog on the work he does within the department, which is available here.

Nicola Lindson wrote a post for the Evidence Live & Centre for Evidence Based Medicine blogs about the idea behind the Cochrane TAG Twentieth Anniversary Prioritisation Study (CTAG taps). This is available by clicking here.

February 2016

We wrote a post for the BMJ blog titled- 'Nicotine replacement therapy—the evolution of an evidence base', which explains the history of our review of NRT for treating nicotine addiction from 1996-2016

You can find it here:

http://goo.gl/YrkaQa

January 2016

We wrote a post for the Cochrane Community blog- 'Origins of TAG'-  about how Cochrane began. You can find it here