A workshop on ‘Investigating tobacco industry interference on public health policies and actions’ was successfully conducted on 1st February 2026. It was jointly organised by the Centre for Combating Tobacco (CCT) and Young Professionals’ Alliance for Health (YouPAH) with funding support from Vital Strategies, USA.

This was the initiation workshop for a short course of 6 weeks in which the participants will carry out their own investigation on tobacco industry interference to gain hands-on skills on investigative research. Applications were called from journalists, health professionals, civil society workers, community development workers, or anyone interested in last December for which we received 120 applications.

From the applicants, selected 34 attended yesterday’s workshop which gave a comprehensive overview of the different forms of tobacco industry interference, methods to investigate these tactics, and practical actions that can be taken to mitigate their impact. The training programme provide continuous engagement and support via Zoom sessions for six weeks during which the participants will be expected to do a field investigation. A series of TobaccoUnmasked pages will be developed based on the findings of the investigations.

The training is conducted in both Sinhala and Tamil media, with no course fee. A Certificate of Competence will be awarded for successful completion of the course and a fellowship opportunity with CCT will be awarded to a few selected participants based on their performance during the course.