The Tobacco Reduction Program (TRP) is a core program of the Interior Health’s (IH) Population Health Unit. Research clearly shows that smoking prevention programs and targeted interventions can have a dramatic and positive effect on the health of the population. Modest investments in tobacco reduction strategies have the downstream potential of reducing not only harm to people’s health, but also has the potential to dramatically reduce the costs of health care to our society.

But despite the apparent value of these investments, the TRP continues to struggle to gain widespread buy-in and uptake of tobacco reduction strategies at all levels in IH. Even large, project-based interventions (e.g., pilot projects; intensive training initiatives) tend to have limited long-term effect on overall integration of tobacco reduction practices into standards of practice across disciplines within the health authority.

Tobacco addiction is a complex physical and psycho-social phenomenon. While the success of the last three decades in reducing tobacco usage and changing social norms is clear, tobacco addiction remains a critical health issue. In order to move the next step forward in addressing the issue, we need to deepen our understanding of the complexities so that we can adapt our tobacco reduction strategies, practices and messaging to build support at all levels of the organization.

Narrative Capture is a process that has proven effective in addressing dilemmas such as this one, including within IH itself. Using leading edge methods grounded in complexity theory, and using narrative capture software, the process offers a way of both collecting and then exploring mass quantities of stories in order to identify new patterns and / or weak signals that can have an enormous impact on whole systems. This narrative capture project will create an environment to mirror the experiences and belief systems of various stakeholder groups in order to understand how they perceive tobacco reduction efforts.

Interior Health (IH) was established as one of five geographically-based health authorities in 2001 by the Government of British Columbia. It is responsible for ensuring publicly funded health services are provided to the people of the Southern Interior. Interior Health serves a large geographic area covering almost 215-thousand square kilometres and includes larger cities such as Kelowna, Kamloops, Cranbrook, Penticton and Vernon, and a multitude of rural and remote communities.

For more information on this project please contact Terry Miller.