A recent study examined neighborhood characteristics of point-of-sale (POS) e-cigarette advertising among tobacco stores. The purpose of this study was to examine socio-demographic characteristics of POS e-cigarette advertising among tobacco stores in the Omaha metropolitan area of Nebraska. Between April and June 2014, trained fieldworkers completed marketing audits of all stores that sell tobacco (n = 463) in the Omaha metropolitan area and collected comprehensive e-cigarette advertising data of these stores.

Findings included:

• 251 (54.2%) of the 463 tobacco stores had e-cigarette advertisements.

• Neighborhoods of stores with POS e-cigarette advertising had higher per capita income, higher percentage of non-Hispanic whites, and higher percentage of individuals with high school education than neighborhoods of stores without POS e-cigarette advertising.

• There were negative associations between e-cigarette advertising and number of adolescents or number of middle/high school students.

• POS e-cigarette advertising among tobacco stores is related with neighborhood socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

The study authors concluded that future studies are needed to understand how these characteristics are related with e-cigarette purchasing and e-cigarette prevalence among social groups.

Source: Wan et al (2017). Point-of-sale e-cigarette advertising among tobacco stores. Journal of Community Health, May 9, [Epub ahead of print].