The UK centre for tobacco and alcohol studies (UKCTAS) was a network of 13 universities funded by the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council and the National Institute of Health Research, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration grant reference number MR/K023195/1.

The STAPM modelling platform was founded on work conducted with UKCTAS funding.

Network research

The network had six work streams:

  • Behaviour and risks of tobacco and alcohol use
  • Population wide strategies for behaviour change
  • Individual strategies for behaviour change
  • Strategies to reduce harm associated with tobacco and alcohol
  • Policy and ethics arising from tobacco and alcohol research
  • The tobacco and alcohol industries

With four cross-cutting themes:

  • Inequalities
  • Developing and using innovative research methodology
  • Conducting and improving methods for assessing the economics of public health
  • Teaching, training, capacity development and public engagement

At Sheffield we have several ongoing projects that aim to improve population-level policies and interventions that reduce harm from tobacco and alcohol use.

We are also using our expertise on cost-effectiveness assessment to examine the cost of smoking and drinking to users, and the cost of interventions to reduce consumption and related harm from tobacco and alcohol.