Grant Number:	2R01CA229305-06A1 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Falk, Emily
Organization:	University Of Pennsylvania
Project Title:	Cancer Prevention Through Geospatial and Temporal Examination of Environmental Effects on Smoking and Quitting
Fiscal Year:	2026

Under parent grant R01CA229305, this research program integrated mobile-phone based location tracking and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to demonstrate that repeated, real-world exposure to tobacco retailers predicts increases in cigarette craving and smoking, thereby increasing cancer risk. This innovative work advanced prior approaches by integrating data from many sources, assessed at various temporal and spatial scales, and aggregating them to the person-day level, allowing us to examine previously unanswered questions about day-to-day variability in individuals’ experiences, their exposure to environmental risk factors, and their smoking. The next critical step for cancer control is to expand this novel analytic framework to understand how a wider range of environmental risk factors affect smoking behavior, and to identify potential intervention targets for environmental situation management. To this end, this proposal integrates individuals’ momentary experiences, mobility in their everyday environments, and a wide range of environmental risk factors to predict cigarette craving and smoking. This work will examine how exposure to environmental risk factors relates to cigarette craving (Aim 1), cigarette smoking (Aim 2), and the success of smoking cessation attempts (Aim 3). The interdisciplinary team will assess risk factors in individuals’ built environments (e.g. tobacco retailers and developed land use), natural environments (e.g. lack of green space and poor air quality), and social environments (e.g., neighborhood income and smoking prevalence). The proposed work will take advantage of a unique pair of existing datasets, with shared, innovative methods - the combination of geolocation tracking and ecological momentary assessment - to study naturalistic behaviors in real-world contexts. These datasets include 436 participants with 36,500 survey time points and 1.2 million geolocation points, and assess cigarette smoking and craving, objectively logged environmental contexts, and other aspects of daily experiences (such as affective states). Use of multiple datasets allows for both replication and extension. This novel framework integrates state-of-the-art environmental datasets with individual tracking that is longitudinal, and temporally- and spatially-specific, providing the opportunity to examine associations between everyday exposures to risk factors in individuals’ environments and their health, in ways not possible prior to this framework. This dataset and analytic approach can serve as a resource to investigate additional environmental risk factors that are associated with smoking and abstaining from smoking, in daily life. Successful completion of these aims will lead to dramatic advances in connecting people’s environments to their daily experiences and decision making, and more broadly, will provide public resources that serve as foundations to increase the impact of interventions and accelerate the science of behavior change and tobacco control.




Using Ecological Momentary Assessment, Geolocation Tracking, and Neuroimaging to Assess Effects of Tobacco Retail Exposure on Smoking Behavior: Protocol for the GeoSmoking Study.
Authors: Cooper N. , Muzekari B. , Resnick A. , Paul A.M. , Torres-Grillo O. , Sayed F. , Beard E. , Cakar M.E. , Carreras-Tartak J. , Hao S. , et al. .
Source: Jmir Research Protocols, 2026-07-10 00:00:00.0; 15, p. e89627.
EPub date: 2026-07-10 00:00:00.0.
PMID: 42430566
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Predicting individual differences in digital alcohol intervention effectiveness through multimodal data.
Authors: Fuchs M. , Boyd Z.M. , Schwarze A. , Cosme D. , Stanoi O. , Kang Y. , Kowatsch T. , Wangenheim F.V. , Bassett D.S. , Ochsner K.N. , et al. .
Source: Npj Digital Medicine, 2026-01-27 00:00:00.0; 9(1), p. 170.
EPub date: 2026-01-27 00:00:00.0.
PMID: 41593196
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Naturalistic Tobacco Retail Exposure and Smoking Outcomes in Adults Who Smoke Cigarettes Daily.
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Source: Jama Network Open, 2025-09-02 00:00:00.0; 8(9), p. e2530132.
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Causal effects of point-of-sale cigarette promotions and subjective social status on cigarette craving: a randomised within-person experiment.
Authors: Andrews M. , Cooper N. , Mattan B.D. , Carreras-Tartak J. , Paul A.M. , Strasser A.A. , Henriksen L. , Falk E.B. .
Source: Tobacco Control, 2023-11-10 00:00:00.0; , .
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Psychological distance intervention reminders reduce alcohol consumption frequency in daily life.
Authors: Jovanova M. , Cosme D. , Doré B. , Kang Y. , Stanoi O. , Cooper N. , Helion C. , Lomax S. , McGowan A.L. , Boyd Z.M. , et al. .
Source: Scientific Reports, 2023-07-25 00:00:00.0; 13(1), p. 12045.
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Mindful attention promotes control of brain network dynamics for self-regulation and discontinues the past from the present.
Authors: Zhou D. , Kang Y. , Cosme D. , Jovanova M. , He X. , Mahadevan A. , Ahn J. , Stanoi O. , Brynildsen J.K. , Cooper N. , et al. .
Source: Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America, 2023-01-10 00:00:00.0; 120(2), p. e2201074119.
EPub date: 2023-01-03 00:00:00.0.
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Media content sharing as a value-based decision.
Authors: Scholz C. , Jovanova M. , Baek E.C. , Falk E.B. .
Source: Current Opinion In Psychology, 2020 02; 31, p. 83-88.
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