Background: Smoking prevalence rates are alarmingly high in developing countries at a time when the United States and the United Kingdom are mobilizing domestic anti-smoking forces. A resident at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center established an American-British partnership to promote international tobacco policy activism.
Methods: The program assembled a coalition of physicians and public health experts from the two countries and provided them with an Internet-based chat resource.
Results: The coalition utilized Internet resources to follow international trends in tobacco use policies and agreed to meet bimonthly through the site to promote anti-smoking activism.
Conclusions: This report introduces a novel approach to international anti-tobacco policy activism. It provides a model that is transportable to other institutions and other public health measures.