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In the ASSIST evaluation, the Strength of Tobacco Control index (chapter 2) was developed to represent the public health effort. The original evaluation model also called for an index to represent tobacco industry efforts, a countervailing force to state tobacco control efforts. 1 White and Bero (Monograph 16, chapter 8) provide in-depth documentation that the tobacco industry did work to counter ASSIST, perceived ASSIST as a significant threat, made and executed plans to counter it, and even evaluated their own efforts. Unfortunately, this analysis could not be used as the basis for a measure of tobacco industry efforts because its purpose was limited to a description of tobacco

Tobacco use prevention and control faces a challenge common to several public health issues: the existence of a profit-making industry that actively works to counter its efforts. Consequently, one of the original goals of the evaluation of the American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (ASSIST) was to define an index of protobacco activity as part of its analytic database. Formal efforts toward this goal included a concept-mapping process among key stakeholders, a review of the published literature on tobacco industry tactics, and a review of tobacco industry documents. The concept mapping process yielded eight categories of tobacco industry tactics used to counter tobacco control: lobbying and legislative strategies, legal and economic intimidation, creating the illusion of support, usurping the agenda, harassment, undermining science, media manipulation, and public relations. A review of the published literature and of the tobacco industry documents provided evidence of …