Ellen Campbell-Grizzle, director of information and research at the National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA), has received an award to participate in the fourth annual tobacco control leadership programme at the prestigious Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The intensive summer training programme is intended to build a cohort of well-trained and well-networked researchers capable of carrying out research relevant to the implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Preference is given to candidates from low- and middle-income countries.

global call made

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health made a global call to senior researchers, scholars and academics and, Grizzle was nominated by her boss, the NCDA's executive director, Michael Tucker. However, the nomination was supported by her track record in the area of research, prevention planning, leadership in the health sector and wider public involvement.

She is the national coordinator for the Global Youth Tobacco Survey and the Global Health Professions Student Survey.

Grizzle is a registered pharmacist, member of the Pharmacy Council of Jamaica, immediate past president of the Caribbean Association of Pharmacists and head of the newly established Caribbean Institute of Pharmacy Practice Policy and Research located at the University of Technology.

She is the second vice-president of the National Consumers League and member of the Jamaica Association of Health Services Executives.

In March 2009, Grizzle graduated from the Caribbean Health Leadership Institute at the University of the West Indies (UWI) as part of the first cohort. She holds a bachelor of pharmacy degree and a bachelor of arts degree in media and communications from the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication at UWI. She is finalising her PhD at CARIMAC and completing a master's in public policy and management at the University of London. Campbell-Grizzle is a published author and writer of the column 'Pharmacy Today' for the health pages of The Gleaner.

Tomorrow is World No Tobacco Day.