Building tobacco control research in Thailand: meeting the need for innovative change in Asia

We used mixed methods including review of historical documentation and policy reports, qualitative interviews with key members of Thailand's tobacco control community, and an analysis of research productivity.In Thailand, tobacco control research has evolved through three phases: (1) discovery of the value of research in the policymaking arena, (2) development of a structure to support research capacity building through international collaborations supported by foreign funding agencies, and (3) delivery of locally relevant research made possible largely through substantial stable funding from a domestic health promotion foundation. Over two decades, Thai tobacco control advocates have constructed five steppingstones to success: (1) adapting foreign research to inform policymaking and lobbying for more support for domestic research; (2) attracting foreign funding agencies to support small-scale research and capacity building; (3) participating in multi-country research and capacity building programs; (4) using collaborative experiences to demonstrate the need for domestic support of locally relevant research; and (5) maintaining an unwavering commitment to research while being vigilant to ensure continued research support.The evolution of tobacco control research in Thailand provides examples of steppingstones that LMICs may be able to use to construct their own tobacco control research pathways.Tobacco control is a process of undertaking measures to reduce tobacco use and eliminate exposure to tobacco and smoke. Experience shows that tobacco control measures are much more likely to be effective when they are based on solid, locally relevant public health research [1]. This is the case because to be effective, tobacco control measures have to be designed to address local problems and be appropriate for local conditions.In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), over the past two decades very few people have been working full-time on tobacco control. Even fewer have