Strategic Plan

OUR VISION: Turning the cost of addiction into data-driven solutions to end the commercial tobacco epidemic in California. OUR MISSION: We fund transformative research that helps reduce commercial tobacco product use, prevent addiction that leads to tobacco-related diseases, and shape policies that serve Californians most harmed by nicotine and commercial tobacco.

The Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) staff embarked on a strategic planning process in the winter of 2025 to define new 5-year goals to guide future grantmaking practices. Bolstered by the progress made in funding innovative research, research dissemination, capacity-building, and community engagement under the previous plan developed in 2020, the goal was to devise new strategies to continue such progress in the face of a significant reduction in funding. The figure below demonstrates the 50% reduction in the revenue TRDRP received from tobacco tax funds over the past 6 years and the predicted rate of continued decline in funding over the next few years.

The current plan refines the TRDRP vision and revises the TRDRP mission and goals to address the current needs of the network of commercial tobacco product use prevention and treatment (cessation) entities in California.

Goal 1: Position TRDRP as a leader in funding policy- and practice-relevant research by maximizing limited tax revenue while advancing innovative methods that prevent or treat addiction to commercial tobacco products among California tobacco priority populations.

Goal 2: Continue to strengthen dissemination of research outcomes and bi-directional communication with communities most burdened by commercial tobacco product use.

Goal 3: Strengthen the conduct of and capacity for community-centered research to support communities most burdened by commercial tobacco product use.