Tobacco industry efforts to harness the voice and influence of community organisations.

Background: The tobacco industry historically recruited community groups to advance its policy agenda; however, there has been little study of industry recruitment of Latinx organisations.

Methods: We reviewed internal tobacco industry documents to identify activities, messaging and strategies used by the Tobacco Institute to obtain political support from a prominent Latinx organisation in the USA. Documents were identified through keyword searches, organised in a spreadsheet and analysed for content.

Results: From 1984 to 1989, the Tobacco Institute funded the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) to support its policy agenda. The Tobacco Institute hired organisation leaders, used a public relations firm to plan activities, crafted messages to encourage Latinx support and provided funding to strengthen relationships with LULAC. This encouraged LULAC to actively support the tobacco industry's positions while obscuring industry involvement.

Conclusions: The Tobacco Institute used tactics identified in previous research on third-party industry allies to build a partnership with LULAC. Tobacco companies use similar practices in the 21st century. Our findings suggest a need for transparency regarding industry funding of community organisations given its potential to influence them in ways that promote health harms.