Analysis of draft National Tobacco Strategy 2022–2030 public consultation submissions

The National Tobacco Strategy (NTS) forms part of greater efforts at coordination of tobacco control measures across levels of government. The NTS is a sub-strategy of the National Drug Strategy and sets out to complement the National Preventative Health Strategy. There have been multiple iterations of the NTS and each is interconnected with a range of other strategies and plans addressing tobacco use and its effect on population health outcomes. In 2022 a draft of the NTS 2022–2030 was prepared by Australian governments and members of the public were invited to provide feedback on the draft. The Department of Health engaged HMA to review and analyse the public consultation submissions to the draft NTS 2022–2030.

This review involved analysis of over 500 public consultation submissions from various sources including individuals, academics, think tanks, peak bodies, healthcare organisations, and NGOs. As part of this project, HMA used a range of qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques to triangulate information from multiple data sources. The analyses included:

  • Development and application of a compliance framework to ensure submissions were analysed in line with Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). This included quarantining of responses that self-identified as being affiliated with the tobacco or e-cigarette industry, and a plagiarism analysis to quarantine responses using proformas known to be affiliated with the tobacco or e-cigarette industry.
  • Qualitative thematic analysis of 65 detailed submissions using NVivo analysis software. This included the creation of a coding framework that identified key themes and sub-themes, as well as intent (positive or negative), to ensure consistency of the analysis across all submissions. The coding framework was developed using a five-step process: familiarisation with the content, coding of sub-themes, generating themes, reviewing themes, and defining and naming themes.
  • Quantitative and qualitative analysis of online survey responses (Likert scales).

The project commenced in April 2022 and was completed in November 2022.