Date of Award

5-31-2018

Document Type

Campus Access Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Public Policy

First Advisor

Edward Alan Miller

Second Advisor

Amy E. Smith

Third Advisor

Amit Patel

Abstract

Tobacco advertising and promotion are associated with increases in tobacco consumption. Due to restrictions imposed on tobacco advertising in print and media, tobacco companies channel a high percentage of their advertising through local retail stores. Many states and local governments, including some local governments in Massachusetts, aim to reduce tobacco use by adopting policies to restrict tobacco advertising. This study investigates the extent of tobacco advertising and retail store compliance with state and local tobacco control advertising regulations in selected municipalities in Massachusetts. It evaluated the extent of tobacco advertising and retail store compliance, exploring factors that may influence them such as the number of local tobacco advertising regulatory provisions, comprehensiveness of other local tobacco control policies beyond retail store advertising, local enforcement strategies, and municipality-level smoking rates. Primary data collection was at the retail store level. Simple and ordinal logistic regression, negative binomial regression, mixed-effects regression, and other analytical methods were employed. Results showed that retail stores were fully compliant with state regulations regardless of its local tobacco control regulations. Also, increased retail store compliance with local tobacco advertising regulations was associated with fewer tobacco advertisement types (range), fewer local tobacco advertising regulatory provisions, more comprehensive other tobacco control regulations beyond retail store advertising and lower municipality-level smoking rates. Similarly, more tobacco advertisements in retail stores were associated with higher municipality-level smoking rates. Retail store compliance with state and local tobacco control regulations in Massachusetts are relatively high. Municipalities are encouraged to adopt tobacco control regulations beyond retail store advertising that cover more policy areas and also serve to block existing loopholes in federal and state regulations. Finally, this study provides a framework linking several factors associated with retail store compliance with local tobacco advertising regulations including tobacco advertising, tobacco control regulations and smoking rates.

Comments

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