Standardized Tobacco Assessment for Retail Settings (STARS): dissemination and implementation research.

Objective: The Standardized Tobacco Assessment for Retail Settings (STARS) was designed to characterise the availability, placement, promotion and price of tobacco products, with items chosen for relevance to regulating the retail tobacco environment. This study describes the process to develop the STARS instrument and protocol employed by a collaboration of US government agencies, US state tobacco control programmes (TCPs), advocacy organisations, public health attorneys and researchers from the National Cancer Institute's State and Community Tobacco Control (SCTC) Research Initiative.

Methods: To evaluate dissemination and early implementation experiences, we conducted telephone surveys with state TCP leaders (n=50, response rate=100%), and with individuals recruited via a STARS download registry on the SCTC website.