Grant Number:	5R01CA269848-03 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Giovenco, Daniel
Organization:	Columbia University Health Sciences
Project Title:	Assessing the Impact and Mechanisms of a Novel Policy Intervention to Reduce Tobacco Retailer Density in Communities
Fiscal Year:	2025

Tobacco retailer density is high in many communities, contributing to elevated smoking prevalence and its associated health harms. Local, environmental-level interventions that aim to reduce the number of tobacco retailers are a new policy frontier in tobacco control, but the impact of these initiatives is critically understudied in real-world settings. Three major US cities – San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York City (NYC) – recently enacted measures that establish caps on the number of tobacco retail licenses permitted in city districts. Density reduction under this intervention occurs not through license revocation, but gradually through retailer attrition. The effects of these “capping” policies on retailer density reduction and the resultant tobacco product marketplace largely depend on temporal, spatial, and store-level patterns in license forfeiture, which are not well-understood. Moreover, to comprehensively assess public health impact, it is important to conduct stakeholder analyses after implementation, describe the policy’s impact on and mechanisms of behavior change, and identify potential unintended effects. The proposed mixed-methods, comparative case study will use archival tobacco retail licensing data, annual audits of tobacco retailers, semi-structured interviews with key community stakeholders, and geocoded health survey data to evaluate this intervention. Specifically, the project will: 1) Measure tobacco retailer density reduction across study sites; 2) Longitudinally characterize changes in the tobacco marketplace during policy implementation; 3) Qualitatively assess key stakeholder perceptions of the policy, its mechanisms of action, and its behavioral impact; and 4) Identify associations between tobacco retailer density reduction and smoking trends in NYC neighborhoods using a unique, annual population survey with geocoded respondent data. Given the lack of empirical support for this environmental-level tobacco control intervention, study results will provide timely and essential evidence to guide future policy development and improve implementation.