Public and Policy Maker Support for Point-of-Sale Tobacco Policies in New York. Issue 3 (January 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Schmitt, Carol L.; Juster, Harlan R.; Dench, Daniel; Willett, Jeffrey; Curry, Laurel E.
• Is Part Of: American journal of health promotion. Volume 28:Issue 3(2014)
• Page Start: 175
• Page End: 180
• Publication Date: 2014-01
• Subjects: Public Health -- Tobacco Control -- Tobacco Policy -- Advocacy -- Public Opinion -- Prevention Research -- Manuscript format: research -- Research purpose: descriptive -- Study design: nonexperimental -- Outcome measure: cognitive -- Setting: state -- Health focus: smoking control -- Strategy: policy -- Target population age: adults -- Target population circumstances: New York public and county-level leaders; Health promotion -- Periodicals; Health Promotion; Health promotion; Periodicals; Periodicals; 613.05
• DOI: 10.4278/ajhp.121023-QUAN-514
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0890-1171

Abstract

Purpose: To compare public and policy maker support for three point-of-sale tobacco policies. Design: Two cross-sectional surveys—one of the public from the New York Adult Tobacco Survey and one of policy makers from the Local Opinion Leader Survey; both collected and analyzed in 2011. Setting: Tobacco control programs focus on educating the public and policy makers about tobacco control policy solutions. Subjects: Six hundred seventy-six county-level legislators in New York's 62 counties and New York City's five boroughs (response rate: 59%); 7439 New York residents aged 18 or older. Landline response rates: 20.2% to 22%. Cell phone response rates: 9.2% to 11.1%. Measures: Gender, age, smoking status, presence of a child aged 18 years or younger in the household, county of residence, and policy maker and public support for three potential policy solutions to point-of-sale tobacco marketing. Analysis: t-tests to compare the demographic makeup for the two samples. Adjusted Wald tests to test for differences in policy support between samples. Results: The public was significantly more supportive of point-of-sale policy solutions than were policy makers: cap on retailers (48.0% vs. 19.2%, respectively); ban on sales at pharmacies (49.1% vs. 38.8%); and ban on retailers near schools (53.3% vs. 42.5%). Limitations: cross-sectional data, sociodemographic differences, and variations in item wording. Conclusions: Tobacco control programs need to include information about implementation, enforcement, and potential effects on multiple constituencies (including businesses) in their efforts to educate policy makers about point-of-sale policy solutions.