Building a Systems Dynamic Model of Smokeless Tobacco Use in Mumbai
In this paper, I review the steps our international research team followed in transforming an ethnographic description of drivers of smokeless tobacco use into systems dynamic model with potential for calibration and quantification. In 2010, the Institute for Community Research (ICR) and the National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health (NIRRH) mounted a mixed methods ethnographic study funded by the National Cancer Institute and the United States Fogarty Center to examine factors associated with smokeless tobacco (SLT) among women of reproductive health age (PIs Jean Schensul for ICR and Saritha Nair for NIRRH). Smokeless tobacco in many different forms is very widely used throughout South and Southeast Asia, with negative health consequences including poor birth outcomes and rates among women are increasing.