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| AADAC | Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commissionhttp://www.aadac.com/ |
| Aboriginal | collective term for the indigenous peoples of Canada and their descendants, including Métis, Inuit and First Nations, on and off reserves and status and non-status under the Indian Act |
| Aboriginal Culture and Spirituality | traditional and religious practices of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada, including the ceremonial use of tobacco for which exemptions are provided under the Smoke-Free Ontario Act |
| Aboriginal Tobacco Program (ATP) | an aboriginal-focused tobacco control program of Cancer Care Ontario (formerly Aboriginal Tobacco Strategy) http://www.tobaccowise.com/ |
| Absolute Price | the actual retail price of a tobacco product in a given place at a given time not adjusting for inflation and disposable income (cf. Real Price) |
| Absolute Risk | the probability that a person or specified population will develop a particular disease over a period of time, e.g., if 1000 daily smokers between the ages of 60 and 70 were followed for 10 years and 52% of them developed lung cancer, then based on this sample the absolute risk of developing lung cancer for daily smokers between the ages of 60 and 70 over 10 years would be 52 per 1000 or 5.2% (cf. Relative Risk)Reference: Last JM (ed.). A Dictionary of Epidemiology, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001. |
| Abstainer | a current nonsmoker (see also Lifetime Abstinence, Sustained Abstinence) |
| Abstinence | refraining from smoking (see also Lifetime Abstinence, Sustained Abstinence) |
| Access | (1) ability of a person or group to see, obtain, possess and especially to pay for tobacco products; (2) legal entitlement to enter premises where tobacco is sold, which may be subject to age restrictions (see also Youth Access) |
| Accessibility | (1) broadly, the ability of a person or group to acquire and especially to pay for tobacco products;
(2) specifically, concerns policies that restrict economic access to tobacco products by increasing price through taxation |
| Accessories | see Tobacco Product Accessories |
| Acetaldehyde | toxic substance found in tobacco smoke which causes irritation of skin, eyes and respiratory tract and is thought to be associated with risk of cancer and fetal infection |
| Act | (1) legislation, which in Canada may be federal, provincial or territorial (see also Federal Legislation and Provincial Legislation);
(2) in Ontario, the result after a bill has undergone Third Reading, been passed by the Legislative Assembly and received Royal Assent |
| Action | in the Transtheoretical Model, a stage in the life of a smoker characterized by having quit smoking within the past six months |
| Activities | the events or actions that are part of a tobacco control program |
| Acute Effect | immediate and short-term reaction to an exposure, e.g., for a current smoker an acute effect of smoking a cigarette may be relief from nicotine craving |
| Addiction | (1) compulsive use of a substance (e.g., tobacco) despite undesired consequences or a desire to stop, often accompanied by neurochemical and molecular changes in the brain; (2) by extension, compulsive performance of certain types of behaviour (e.g., gambling) despite undesired consequences or a desire to stopReference: Kalant H, Kalant OJ. Drugs, Society and Personal Choice. Addiction Research Foundation, Toronto, 1971. |
| Addiction Research Foundation of Ontario (ARF) | former provincial addictions agency that merged in 1998 with the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, the Queen Street Mental Health Centre and the Donwood Institute to become the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), a public hospital |
| ADHD | Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder |
| ADM | Assistant Deputy Minister, generally the second highest level in a bureaucracy |
| Adolescent | a person who is older than a child but younger than a young adult, generally defined as 12 to 17 years old, an age group at risk for smoking initiation |
| Adoption | (1) in Diffusion of Innovation, the taking up of a new idea, product or practice by members of a given culture, which sometimes follows a pattern over time from low to high rates of adoption ending in common practice; (2) in RE-AIM, the number, proportion and representativeness of settings and staff who are willing to offer a tobacco control program(1) Reference: Rogers EM. Diffusion of Innovations, Fifth Edition. Free Press, New York, 2003. (2) Available at: http://www.re-aim.org/2003/researchers/adoption_res.html; accessed Feb. 5, 2009 |
| Adult | (1) in Canada federally, a person who is 18 years old or more, although 6 Canadian provinces (British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island) and one Canadian territory (Nunavut) make it illegal to sell or supply tobacco products to anyone under the age of 19;
(2) in some population surveys, includes persons aged 15 years and older |
| Advertising | (1) broadly, bringing to public notice a product or service by displaying it on billboards or other settings, publishing it in the press or announcing it in the electronic media;
(2) in tobacco control, usually refers to the advertising of tobacco products, which in Canada is restricted (not totally banned) under the 1997 federal Tobacco Act (see also In-Store Advertising, Lifestyle Advertising, Tobacco Industry Marketing, Tombstone Advertising)(1) Reference: Last JM. A Dictionary of Public Health. Oxford University Press, New York, 2007. |
| Advocacy | see Tobacco Control Advocacy |
| Affect | technical term for mood, which in smokers may be influenced by use of or withdrawal from nicotine (see also Negative Affect and Positive Affect) |
| Affordability | price of cigarettes in relation to disposable incomeReference: Blecher EH, van Walbeek CP. An international analysis of cigarette affordability. Tobacco Control 2004;13:339-346. |
| Agency for Health Protection and Promotion | an Ontario public health agency linking researchers, practitioners and front-line healthcare workers to the best scientific intelligence from around the worldhttp://www.oahpp.ca |
| Agent | in the epidemiologic model of disease transmission, the active cause of disease, e.g., tobacco products (the agent) as the cause of cancer |
| AHS | Alberta Health Services |
| Air Dilution | synonym for Ventilation |
| Air Quality | relative healthiness of the air for breathing as determined by the presence or absence of harmful pollutants, e.g., secondhand smoke |
| Alberta Cancer Board and Foundation | provincial organization in Alberta committed to solving the problem of cancer in all its complexity across the continuum of prevention to treatment to support http://www.cancerboard.ab.ca/ |
| Alberta Health Services (AHS) | provincial health authority in Alberta whose goal is to provide accessible and sustainable patient-focused health services to all the citizens of Alberta; AHS is the current governing body for the AADAC and the Alberta Cancer Board and Foundation http://www.albertahealthservices.ca/ |
| AMA | American Medical Association http://www.ama-assn.org/ |
| Amendment | modification of legislation by parliamentary or constitutional procedure for the purpose of improving or updating the legislation in some way |
| Ammonia | toxic substance in tobacco smoke which causes asthma and eye irritation |
| Amount Smoked Daily | in survey and clinical research, level of self-reported smoking which is used as a measure of nicotine dependence and often expressed as a range, e.g., 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, 26+ cigarettes per day, or as a mean value, e.g., average of 10.5 cigarettes per day in the past 30 days (see also Heaviness of Smoking Index (HSI))Reference: Mills C, Stephens T, Wilkins K. Summary report of the workshop on data for monitoring tobacco use. Chronic Diseases in Canada 1994;15(3):105-110. |
| Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) | (1) briefly, a statistical method for assessing the size of differences among means of two or more variables; (2) more explicitly, a statistical method for isolating and assessing the contribution of categorical independent variables to variation in the mean of a continuous dependent variableLast JM (ed.). A Dictionary of Epidemiology, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001. |
| Annual Cessation Rate | percentage of current smokers from a defined population who successfully quit smoking in a given one-year period |
| Annual Quit Rate | synonym for Annual Cessation Rate |
| ANOVA | Analysis of Variance |
| Anti-Contraband Measure | action, intervention or law that discourages the illegal sale of untaxed cigarettes (see also Tracking and Tracing)Reference: Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Contraband Tobacco Enforcement Strategy. Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, Ottawa, 2008. Catalogue No. PS61-11/2007; ISBN 978-0-662-05403-0. Available at: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/ce-da/tobacco-tabac-strat-2008-eng.htm; accessed Feb. 26, 2009. |
| Anti-Tobacco | an attitude of disapproval sometimes combined with action against tobacco products and the tobacco industry |
| Anti-Tobacco Campaign | a range of public actions, often involving use of the mass media, to discourage smoking and expose the deficiencies of the tobacco industry |
| Antidepressant | a drug used primarily to treat depression, which may occur among smokers trying to quit smoking (see also Bupropion Hydrochloride, Varenicline, Zyban®) |
| APHA | American Public Health Association http://www.apha.org/ |
| Application | the putting into practice of research findings on tobacco control |
| Applied Research | loose term for research that is carried out as a by-product of routine service or for a specific pragmatic purposeReference: Last JM. A Dictionary of Public Health. Oxford University Press, New York, 2007. |
| Arc Elasticity | the ratio of the proportional change in one variable (e.g., smoking prevalence) to the proportional change in another (e.g., cigarette price) as actually measured between points over a discrete range |
| ARF | Addiction Research Foundation of Ontario |
| ASH | (1) Action on Smoking and Health, an Alberta-based tobacco control organization (2) Action on Smoking and Health in the United States (3) Action on Smoking and Health in the United Kingdom (1) http://www.ash.ca/ (2) http://www.ash.org/ (3) http://www.ash.org.uk/ |
| Assessment | a core function of public health involving the systematic collection and analysis of data to be used for decision makingAvailable at: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309038308&page=141; accessed Feb. 4, 2009. |
| ASSIST | American Stop Smoking Intervention StudyReference: Stillman F, Hartman A, Graubard B, Gilpin E, Chavis D, Garcia J, Wun LM, Lynn W, Manley M. The American Stop Smoking Intervention Study: conceptual framework and evaluation design. Evaluation Review 1999;23(3):259-280. |
| Asthma | chronic sometimes fatal respiratory disease characterized by laboured breathing, wheezing, a sense of constriction in the chest and coughing, for which exposure to secondhand smoke is a risk factor in children and adultsReference: Canadian Lung Association. Diseases A-Z. Canadian Lung Association, Ottawa, 2008. Available at: http://www.lung.ca/diseases-maladies/a-z_e.php; accessed Mar 11, 2009. |
| At Risk | the likelihood that certain persons or groups (e.g., young adults) will engage in smoking behaviourReference: Gilpin EA, White VM, Pierce JP. What fraction of young adults are at risk for future smoking and who are they? Nicotine and Tobacco Research 2005;7:747-759. |
| ATF | official abbreviation of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, sometimes unofficially abbreviated BATF http://www.atf.gov/ |
| ATP | Aboriginal Tobacco Program |
| ATS | (Ontario) Aboriginal Tobacco Strategy, former name of the Aboriginal Tobacco Program |
| Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder | a childhood condition characterized by hyperactivity, inattention and impulsivity, which is more common in boys than girls and may sometimes be associated with maternal smoking |
| Attributable Risk | a measure of how much the total incidence of a disease is caused by a particular risk factor, e.g., if the attributable risk of smoking tobacco products for lung cancer is 85%, then 85% of lung cancer would be eliminated if they quit smoking (cf. Relative Risk) |
| Augmentation Features | extra horizontal or vertical display pieces extending beyond rows of cigarettes in a power wall for the purpose of attracting customer attention |
| Availability | (1) broadly, conditions that have an impact on opportunities for buying or otherwise obtaining tobacco products, how often and where tobacco products are seen, and as a consequence how normative they are in a given environment; (2) more narrowly, the physical presence of tobacco products in the retail environment, as determined by the number and characteristics of tobacco sales outlets as well as hours and days of sale (see also Outlet Density)Reference: Ferrence R. Learning from tobacco: bans on commercial availability are not unthinkable. Addiction 2003;98:720-721. |
| Availability Theory | an idea from alcohol policy to the effect that increased availability leads to increased consumption which in turn leads to increased problem ratesReference: Single E. The availability theory of alcohol-related problems. In: Chaudron CD, Wilkinson DA (eds.). Theories on Alcoholism. Addiction Research Foundation, Toronto, pp. 325-351, 1988. |
| Aversive Smoking | cessation therapies that use unpleasant sensations or associations to help people quit smoking, e.g., focused smoking, rapid smokingReference: University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. Glossary. Madison, Wisconsin, 2005. Available at: http://www.ctri.wisc.edu/Home/Glossary.html; accessed Mar. 30, 2009. |
| AYC | Area Youth Coalition, any of several Ontario regional youth groups dedicated to tobacco control under the Smoke-Free Ontario Strategy |
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The OTRU Glossary of Tobacco Control provides brief definitions of over 1,000 tobacco control terms, abbreviations and acronyms. Definitions are based on many sources including dictionaries, legislative texts, websites, reports, books, peer-reviewed journal articles and communications from tobacco control experts. A single definition often reflects material from more than one source.
While we have tried to be comprehensive in producing this resource, the language of tobacco control is constantly evolving and there may be relevant terms that are not listed or terms whose meanings may have changed.
Comments about the glossary or particular definitions are welcome and can be sent to lise_anglin@camh.net. For technical assistance, please contact sonja_johnston@camh.net