The research team at the OSUCCC – James Mays Lab is comprised of nationally recognized scientists from institutions across the country, including The Ohio State University, Duke University, University of Oklahoma, University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, University of Massachusetts, and others. Mays Lab researchers leverage innovative communication technology, messaging strategies, and biobehavioral frameworks and methods to study interventions designed for implementation at the population level to reduce tobacco use and other cancer risk behaviors in young people. This public health orientation to interventions stands to benefit not only those in Ohio, but also on a national scale for cancer prevention.
Recent and ongoing work is studying interventions delivered using digital media, such as mobile phones and social media, for tobacco use and other cancer prevention outcomes. Mays Lab’s research also studies how marketing and advertising for tobacco affect adults and young people, and tests policy and regulatory strategies for their effects on tobacco use outcomes.
Through this innovative research that studies cancer risks and reduction strategies, the Mays Lab team is creating novel behavioral interventions and policy strategies to prevent and reduce tobacco use.
Breakthroughs and Discoveries
The Mays Lab research team is dedicated to understanding the role of behavioral interventions and policy and regulatory changes in preventing tobacco use and influencing other cancer prevention outcomes. The lab’s primary focus is on youth, young adults and vulnerable populations where preventive interventions can impact cancer risk behaviors like tobacco use. Recently completed studies include two projects funded by the National Cancer Institute to develop and test interventions designed to prevent and reduce waterpipe (hookah) use among young people. These projects are among the first published clinical trials to provide evidence on the effectiveness of interventions for waterpipe tobacco smoking prevention and cessation among young people.
Collaborative work also includes research with the Food and Drug Administration’s Tobacco Centers for Regulatory Science (TCORS), investigating how tobacco marketing, packaging, and labeling, and potential regulations for packaging and labeling, influence what consumers believe about tobacco products and tobacco use behavior. Mays Lab team members are also involved in a newly formed national tobacco surveillance network, the Rutgers Center of Excellence in Rapid Surveillance of Tobacco. The goals of these collaborative projects are to comprehensively monitor the tobacco market in the U.S. and produce evidence that can inform FDA tobacco regulations for tobacco products.