The Association of Exposure to Point-of-Sale Tobacco Marketing with Quit Attempt and Quit Success: Results from a Prospective Study of Smokers in the United States

Authors

Mohammad Siahpush, University of Nebraska Medical CenterFollow
Raees A. Shaikh, University of Nebraska Medical CenterFollow
Danielle Smith, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Elm and Carlton StreetsFollow
Andrew Hyland, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Elm and Carlton StreetsFollow
K. Michael Cummings, Medical University of South CarolinaFollow
Asia Sikora Kessler, University of Nebraska Medical CenterFollow
Michael D. Dodd, University of Nebraska–LincolnFollow
Les Carlson, University of Nebraska–LincolnFollow
Jane L. Meza, University of Nebraska Medical CenterFollow
Melanie Wakefield, The Cancer Council VictoriaFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2016

Citation

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2016, 13, 203;

doi:10.3390/ijerph13020203

Comments

© 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution (CC-BY) license

Abstract

The aim was to assess the association of exposure to point-of-sale (POS) tobacco marketing with quit attempt and quit success in a prospective study of smokers in the United States. Data were collected via telephone-interview on exposure to POS tobacco marketing, sociodemographic and smoking-related variables from 999 smokers in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States. Exposure to POS tobacco marketing was measured by asking respondents three questions about noticing pack displays, advertisements, and promotions in their respective neighborhoods stores. These three variables were combined into a scale of exposure to POS tobacco marketing. About 68% of the respondents participated in a six-month follow-up phone interview and provided data on quit attempts and smoking cessation. At the six-month follow-up, 39.9% of respondents reported to have made a quit attempt, and 21.8% of those who made a quit attempt succeeded in quitting. Exposure to POS marketing at baseline was not associated with the probability of having made a quit attempt as reported at the six-month follow-up (p = 0.129). However, higher exposure to POS marketing was associated with a lower probability of quit success among smokers who reported to have attempted to quit smoking at six-month follow-up (p = 0.006). Exposure to POS tobacco marketing is associated with lower chances of successfully quitting smoking. Policies that reduce the amount of exposure to POS marketing might result in higher smoking cessation rates.