CTP Public Education Campaign

Updated 12/11/2020. Please see the additional revised attachments which amend Attachment G_RFP Question Submittal Form and RFP_FDA-SOL-1230974. Please also see Attachment J_HHS Small Business Subcontracting Plan Template.

To protect the public's health, the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (TCA) gave FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products and educate the public about the dangers of tobacco use. FDA’s authority extends to all tobacco products, including, but not limited to, cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own, smokeless tobacco, e-cigarettes, cigars, hookah, heat-not-burn, and pipe tobacco. FDA’s authority also extends to reviewing and approving new tobacco products before they are allowed to be marketed and sold to consumers. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the U.S., resulting in more than 480,000 deaths each year. Despite this, each day in the U.S. more than 4,700 youth and young adults aged 12-25 smoke their first cigarette. If these current trends continue, an estimated 5.6 million children alive today will die prematurely as a result of smoking. Additionally, in 2020 3.6 million youth reported using e-cigarettes within the past 30 days. Youth e-cigarette usage rates have decreased from 2019 but usage remains high and there has been a significant increase in youth usage of disposable e-cigarettes and flavored products; 8 out of 10 youth e-cigarette users report using a flavored product. With the continued high rates of youth usage of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), FDA is currently prioritizing ENDS prevention messaging to youth.

To reduce the public health burden of tobacco use in the U.S. and to educate the public—especially young people—about the dangers of tobacco product use, the FDA Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) has developed and is implementing a number of public education campaigns that directly support our mission. Evidence from controlled field experiments and population studies shows that paid media campaigns are a proven strategy to prevent and reduce population-level tobacco use and have contributed to significant declines in tobacco use over the past several decades. However, the paid media campaigns of today must navigate a fragmented, competitive media environment to find and motivate hard-to-reach audiences who aren't particularly interested in the topic of tobacco.

The purpose of this requirement is to provide CTP with a mechanism to obtain technical services supporting a full range of communications activities, including: conducting formative research, planning, developing, producing, and delivering consumer-based communication programs; strategies and materials for multiple paid media multichannel public health education campaigns; applying unique combinations of geographic, demographic, psychographic, socioeconomic and cultural factors to target both national and niche audiences.