The purpose of the grant is to support your research in the area of Tobacco Economics Research and Advocacy (political mapping and advocacy strategy).

The objectives of the project are to estimate the effectiveness of tobacco control policy in the context of the poor segments of the population taking into consideration economic and administrative aspect of the tobacco control; estimate the effectiveness of tobacco control policy for the poor population; identify the optimal strategy in tobacco control for smoking reduction amongst poor while preventing the target group from negative economic impacts (job loss etc.); highlight more acceptable tools for tobacco control applicable for the target group; identify market shares of cheaper cigarettes, consumption trends amongst poor population; and produce a research and policy paper for the State Committee for Poverty Reduction, Tobacco Control Program of the Ministry of Health in coordination with mentors.

The research will be divided into two logical sections. The first section will more focus on economic analyses and research. It tries to discover and explain the theoretical aspects of tobacco control and its impact on poor population. The paper will cover tobacco production, market shares and cigarette consumption trends, looking specifically at tobacco consumption by the poor population. The possible effect of tobacco control on the price of cigarettes will be discussed.
The second section will focus on policy advice. The purpose of this section will be three-fold:
- Provide the information needed by policy makers.
- Formulate more effective tobacco control measures to positively impact on poor population in terms of smoking prevalence.
- Formulate a more effective policy that takes into account those who are negatively affected by tobacco control.
Each chapter of the research will include topics from both section to more broadly cover the issue.

The overall study is to be carried out by two experts from the International Center of Human Development (ICHD) – myself (application ID: 2221-TOB-AMI-AM) and Dr. Sevak Lalayan (application ID: 1552-TOB-LAL-AM). Each of us will focus on different section of the research: I will do the economic research part and Dr. Sevak Lalayan will focus on public policy advice.