Twenty years of the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group: Past, present, and future
Lindson-Hawley N., Heath L., Hartmann-Boyce J.
© The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. All rights reserved. Cochrane is a global organization committed to carrying out high-standard systematic reviews and meta-analyses to inform health care and those associated with it, from patients to providers. The Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group (TAG) has been reviewing the evidence for interventions to treat and prevent tobacco addiction for 20 years. During this time, the group has published over 70 reviews in the area, which have had substantial impacts on health care guidance and treatment provision. This has coincided with a reduction in smoking prevalence in the United Kingdom. One of the groups' key objectives is to move with the times, and it does this not only by updating historical reviews with the most up-to-date evidence but also by commissioning or accepting requests for new reviews in novel areas, such as electronic cigarettes and plain packaging. This review paper highlights the previous important work that the group has done and its impacts, what is happening within the group more currently, and also describes where Cochrane TAG wish to go in the future and the work being done to solidify aims. Part of this is a prioritization project being carried out to mark the 20th anniversary of the group, which is using stakeholder engagement to inform an action plan to inform the outputs and aid dissemination to ensure Cochrane TAG's work is relevant and maximizes impact for the next 20 years. Implications: This review provides an overview of the work of Cochrane TAG. Readers will gain an insight into the origins of the group, its impact on evidence-based medicine relating to tobacco addiction, and the goals of the group moving forward. This supports the group's aim to encourage knowledge of Cochrane's work within the field, and thereby the wider use of and contribution to highquality systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the literature to improve policy and clinical practice.