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Background: Tobacco usage has been identified as a leading preventable cause of mortality and is responsible for six million fatalities per year globally. India had enacted COTPA in 2003. Tobacco vendors are one of the key stakeholders for Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) implementation. Objective: To assess the knowledge gap on COTPA and to explore the perceived factors influencing implementation of COTPA among tobacco vendors in Puducherry. Materials and Methods: A mixed-method study was conducted among tobacco vendors from Point of Sale (PoS) around 230 educational institutions (schools and degree colleges) in Puducherry for three months. Simple random sampling was applied to select educational institutions and the tobacco vendors from PoS located around these institutions were included. Data capture was done using a pretested, face-validated questionnaire incorporated in Epicollect software 5 and data analysis by SPSSv24. Purposive sampling was employed to conduct in-depth interviews among tobacco vendors till the point of saturation and manual content analysis performed. Written informed consents were sought. Institutional Ethical Committee approval was obtained. Results: Majority (95.7%) reported that they were aware of tobacco control legislation, but only one person had heard of COTPA. Awareness about the display of signage boards at PoS was observed in 75.7% vendors. Around 41.7% reported that they should not advertise any kind of tobacco products. Three major themes were identified: facilitators, barriers, and suggested measures for COTPA implementation. Conclusion: Tobacco vendors in Puducherry were aware of tobacco control legislations but not familiar with the COTPA and its provisions. It is necessary to put forth efforts to educate these important stakeholders to be more cognizant of COTPA and to effectively include them in anti-tobacco programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: National legislation (COTPA) in India has focused on school children with dedicated section (6a and 6b) for tobacco control at Educational Institutions. Innovative mediums like Comic offer unique and engaging medium for dissemination of health information. However, its true potential remains unexplored in tobacco control. The study was conducted to develop and validate Comic for promotion of tobacco control laws in school settings. Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted among school teachers in Delhi in three phases: (1) need assessment, (2) development of Comic, and (3) validation (face/content validity by experts in public health/tobacco control, and construct validity by school teachers). Ethical clearance was obtained from Institutional Ethical Review Board. Prevalidated, structured, close-ended, and self-administered Questionnaire was used for the data collection. SPSS version 21 was used for descriptive and inferential results. Results: Phase 1 showed, out of 150 school teachers, 121 participated (80.66%). Mean age and teaching experience was 41.85 ± 9.76 years and 10.35 ± 6.53 years, respectively. Overall awareness about COTPA was 47.9% (n = 58) and COTPA sections 4 and 6 were 37.2% (n = 45). Majority 59.5% (n = 72) reported lack of access to training material. Phase 2 and 3 showed overall content validity index (CVI) score of 0.84. Construct validity evaluation from pre–postintervention yield mean ± SD scores of 3.94 ± 0.99 and 7.97 ± 1.17, respectively, (P < 0.001). Conclusion: Comic was developed on sound theoretical basis with satisfactory face, content and construct validity, to raise awareness about tobacco control among school children, and teachers to promote tobacco-free school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]