Tackshs

The Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD) features a spotlight on TackSHS Project Coordinator, Esteve Fernandez. The TackSHS Project is made possible thanks to the recent GACD Lung Diseases Call.

Esteve Fernandez notes that TackSHS aims to have a comprehensive understanding of the exposure to second-hand smoke and aerosols from electronic cigarettes to be able to protect the population from these hazards by means of effective evidence-based policies and interventions.

The Project integrates 11 partners from 6 countries to develop a series of integrated studies. Two big studies focus on measurement of current second-hand smoke exposure levels, both self-reported by the population and characterised using environmental markers, in 12 European countries. The other studies focus on specific aspects to tackle second-hand smoke and e-cigarettes aerosol exposure: their effects on healthy volunteers and in patients with chronic respiratory diseases in experimental and real conditions, the assessment of their impact in terms of morbidity and mortality at the European level and how the current policies may reduce their economic impact, the improvement of new measurement methods, and the piloting of a new intervention to encourage behaviour-change towards having smoke-free homes. These studies are developed within 9 work packages with two additional supporting work packages for the coordination and dissemination. A big effort will be done to disseminate our methods and results about the scientific community and among patients, policymakers and other stakeholders.

Read the full article.

GACD also features an article on the TackSHS project.