CDC Prevention Research Centers

    • The CDC’s Prevention Research Centers (PRCs) form a network of 26 academic research centers in 24 states that study how people and their communities can avoid or counter the risks for chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, obesity, and cancer. These centers are located at either a school of public health or a medical school that has a preventive medicine residency program. As leaders in translating research results into policy and public health practice, the centers work with communities to develop, evaluate, and implement major community changes that can prevent and control chronic diseases. They identify gaps in research and develop innovative approaches to improving public health that can be shared broadly with public health partners.

    • Much of the work of the PRCs either deals directly with nicotine and tobacco, or is focused on related public health topics. SRNT has members at 25 of the 26 PRCs (Tulane is the exception).

    • A list of the current PRCs is at https://www.cdc.gov/prc/center-descriptions/index.htm

Active PRC projects that deal directly with nicotine and tobacco:

  1. Theoretical Constructs Promoting Lasting Behavior Change
    Host Institution: Dartmouth College
    Principal Investigator: Stephen J Bartels, MD stephen.j.bartels@dartsmouth.edu

  2. Village Interventions and Venues for Action II (VIVA II): Dissemination and Implementation
    Host institution: University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
    Principal Investigator: Sally Davis, PhD sdavis@salud.unm.edu

  3. CounterTobacco.org
    Host Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    Principal Investigator:  Kurt Ribisl kurt_ribisl@unc.edu

  4. Low Dose CT Lung Cancer Screening: Informed Decision Making and Smoking Cessation
    Host Institution: University of Washington
    Principal Investigator:  Jeffrey Harris, MD jh7@u.washington.edu

  5. Quitline Registries for Continuously Engaging Participants in Smoking Cessation
    Host Institution: University of South Carolina at Columbia
    Principal Investigator: Jim Thrasher thrasher@mailbox.sc.edu

  6. Developing a Health Communication Campaign for Tobacco Control
    Host Institution: Emory University (previous center)
    Principal Investigator: Carla Berg cjberg@emory.edu

  7. Screening Women for Chronic Diseases at Reproductive Health Clinics
    Host Institution:  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    Principal Investigator:  Tom Keyserling thomas_keyserling@med.unc.edu

  8. Evaluating a Smoking Cessation Program for Pregnant Women in Argentina and Uruguay
    Host Institution: Tulane University
    Principal Investigator:  Pierre Buekens pbuekens@tulane.edu

  9. Creating an Online Tobacco Control Point-of-Sale Resource Center

    Host Institution:  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    Principal Investigator:  PKurt Ribisl kurt_ribisl@unc.edu

PRC tools that may be useful to those interested in conducting or understanding applied public health prevention research and addressing health disparities are at https://www.cdc.gov/prc/resources/prc-tools.html.