Strategies used by tobacco companies to circumvent tobacco-control regulations across regulatory environments - a scoping review protocol.

BACKGROUND: Tobacco use remains a leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality worldwide despite the implementation of comprehensive tobacco control measures under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Regulatory interventions such as advertising restrictions, plain or standardised packaging, taxation, smoke-free legislation, flavour restrictions and regulation of electronic nicotine delivery systems have demonstrated effectiveness in reducing tobacco consumption. The tobacco industry has consistently developed adaptive strategies to circumvent, delay, weaken or undermine these regulatory efforts. Although individual studies have documented specific tactics within discrete policy domains, a comprehensive synthesis mapping industry circumvention strategy across regulatory environments is lacking. OBJECTIVE: This scoping review aims to systematically map and categorise strategies employed by tobacco companies to circumvent tobacco control regulations across diverse policy domains and regulatory contexts globally. METHODS: This protocol follows the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews and will be reported in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Eligibility criteria are structured using the Population-Concept-Context framework. The Population includes tobacco industry actors and affiliated entities such as manufacturers, trade associations, front groups, lobbyists and third-party organisations. The Concept focuses on identifiable strategies or tactics used to circumvent, undermine, delay, exploit or weaken tobacco control regulations. The Context encompasses all regulatory environments and policy domains globally, including advertising restrictions, packaging regulations, taxation, smoke-free laws, product standards and trade disputes. A comprehensive three-step search strategy will be conducted across major bibliographic databases, legal sources and grey literature. Two independent reviewers will conduct study selection and data charting. Extracted data will be synthesised descriptively and thematically, including the development of a typology of circumvention strategies and a mapping matrix to examine variation across regulatory domains and jurisdictions. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethics approval is not required for this scoping review. The findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journal publications and conference presentations.