<strong>Objective:</strong> This study was designed to inform the development of a web tool to simplify access to and analysis of available evidence for youth tobacco control. This tool will support planning, evaluation and research related to youth tobacco control. Primary objectives were to examine useful functions and characteristics of potential end-users. <br /> <strong>Methods:</strong> A pilot-tested, web-based questionnaire was administered to potential end-users (N=43). A purposeful sample of participants was selected to represent individuals working in youth tobacco control from research, health, and education sectors in Western, Central, and Eastern Regions of Canada. Data were analyzed using frequency calculations and cross-tabulations by sector. Results guided the creation of a prototype. Interviews were conducted with a subset of participants (N=6) to validate the prototype and identify further functions. Data were analyzed using content analysis. <br /> <strong>Results:</strong> Useful functions of the prototype identified varied slightly across sectors. Research participants felt that access to raw data was a useful function. Health sector practitioners were interested in accessing data and creating summary reports of data. Educators were mostly interested in obtaining summary information from data, through reports. Further, health and research participants felt the information resources function was redundant. This research has provided important insights that will guide the development of a functional web tool. <br /> <strong>Implications:</strong> This tool can enable users to identify effective interventions, track the progress of school or health regions relative to benchmarks, and identify high risk schools or communities to target intervention efforts. This tool is an innovative way to maximize the use of available resources to link research, policy, and practice.

This study explores how young people conceptualise addiction to smoking and, also the relationship between young people's addiction beliefs and intentions to smoke cigarettes. Addiction to smoking is a major health problem, not just for adults, but also for young smokers, up to 60% of whom are dependent on nicotine. However, anti-smoking prevention efforts targeted at young people generally emphasise ill-health effects and little attention is paid to addiction education which is generally considered relevant only to adult smoking and cessation efforts. Perhaps as a consequence, young people appear to have many misconceptions and unrealistic ideas about addiction, and these may possibly have influenced initial decisions to take up smoking. For example, between 50% and 60% of young smokers believe that it would be easy or very easy to stop smoking altogether if and when they choose to and the majority of daily smokers mistakenly believe that they will not be smoking for more than five years. For these young smokers, becoming addicted is often an unforeseen consequence and most are surprised to find that they cannot give up smoking as easily as they thought. The majority of addicted smokers regret ever taking up smoking but nevertheless continue to smoke cigarettes for perhaps 30 to 40 years because they find it very difficult to stop. This backdrop provides the impetus for the present study.

<strong>Objective:</strong> This study was designed to inform the development of a web tool to simplify access to and analysis of available evidence for youth tobacco control. This tool will support planning, evaluation and research related to youth tobacco control. Primary objectives were to examine useful functions and characteristics of potential end-users. <br /> <strong>Methods:</strong> A pilot-tested, web-based questionnaire was administered to potential end-users (N=43). A purposeful sample of participants was selected to represent individuals working in youth tobacco control from research, health, and education sectors in Western, Central, and Eastern Regions of Canada. Data were analyzed using frequency calculations and cross-tabulations by sector. Results guided the creation of a prototype. Interviews were conducted with a subset of participants (N=6) to validate the prototype and identify further functions. Data were analyzed using content analysis. <br /> <strong>Results:</strong> Useful functions of the prototype identified varied slightly across sectors. Research participants felt that access to raw data was a useful function. Health sector practitioners were interested in accessing data and creating summary reports of data. Educators were mostly interested in obtaining summary information from data, through reports. Further, health and research participants felt the information resources function was redundant. This research has provided important insights that will guide the development of a functional web tool. <br /> <strong>Implications:</strong> This tool can enable users to identify effective interventions, track the progress of school or health regions relative to benchmarks, and identify high risk schools or communities to target intervention efforts. This tool is an innovative way to maximize the use of available resources to link research, policy, and practice.