About the Tobacco Regulatory Science Program

What Is the Tobacco Regulatory Science Program?

The Tobacco Regulatory Science Program (TRSP) is an interagency partnership between the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) to foster tobacco regulatory research.

With the passage of the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act), the FDA acquired the authority to regulate the manufacture, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products in order to protect public health. Within the framework of the Tobacco Control Act, TRSP provides scientific evidence and data to inform FDA’s regulatory actions.

Through this partnership, NIH and FDA establish a comprehensive research agenda in tobacco regulatory science. NIH provides the infrastructure for the solicitation, review, and management of scientific research, and several NIH Institutes and Centers have long supported tobacco-related research as part of their missions. The FDA provides the expertise, authority, and resources to support research responsive to FDA’s regulatory authority. 

TRSP brings together scientists from diverse fields, such as epidemiology, chemistry, toxicology, addiction, and psychology, to shed light on why people try and continue to use tobacco, how tobacco use affects health, and which policies might help reduce the risk of harm. TRSP-supported biomedical, behavioral, and social sciences research helps FDA better understand tobacco use and associated risks in order to reduce the public health burden of tobacco in the United States.

 

What Is the FDA Center for Tobacco Products?

The CTP oversees the implementation of the Tobacco Control Act. Some of the CTP’s responsibilities under the law include setting performance standards, reviewing pre-market applications for new and modified risk tobacco products, requiring new warning labels, and establishing and enforcing advertising and promotion restrictions.

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