The design of EQUIPT has several strengths. The European roll-out of the ROI tool is based on prior research in
the UK. The ‘inverted cone’ approach to EQUIPT allows us to test the transferability of economic evidence in a logical sellekchem pathway. This approach is likely to avoid any noise in drawing policy implications from the study results. Stakeholder engagement throughout the research process highlights the design to be highly relevant to end-users of research findings. EQUIPT is not free of challenges, however. The country-specific modelling process will require most relevant country-specific data, which are often scarce. A related limitation concerns the availability of effectiveness data on the full-range activities and strategies recommended
by, for example, the WHO, the US Surgeon General’s report and the Centre for Disease Control. To aid in the transfer of evidence where such data are not available, the project is set up to seek to identify those input data that cause the most variability with respect to outcomes. In addition, the selection of the four sample countries is designed to provide a wide representation of the smoking cessation context within Europe, thereby aiding in the adaptation of the model to inform policy within additional countries. In the worst-case scenario of extreme scarcity of relevant data in a country, EQUIPT will seek an expert panel to make decisions on the best available evidence for such a case. By doing so, EQUIPT will highlight the gaps where more research needs to be conducted and/or more data need to be collected. Furthermore, while the transferability of study results to out-of-sample countries is a complex endeavour, this needs to be communicated to end-users in simple, practical and customisable web-based tools. Thanks to the ‘inverted cone’ approach, the stakeholder engagement as well as modelling experience gathered in sample countries will inform us to mitigate such challenges. Supplementary Material Reviewer comments: Click here to view.(7.2K, pdf) Footnotes Contributors: All authors
conceived the study, participated in a proposal development workshop and subsequently applied for funding. SP wrote the first draft of the manuscript with support from DC, KC, AL-G Anacetrapib and MV and was responsible for the final editing. DC, KC, SE, RL, MT-B and LO provided critical inputs to the economic modelling component; AC, FA and AR contributed to policy component; RW, TJ and ZV to interventions and effectiveness components; HdV, AL-G and CR-L to dissemination component; and ZK, MH and SP to international transferability component. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript. SP is the guarantor. Funding: We have received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement No. 602270 (EQUIPT).