Summary

Description

The California Tobacco Advertising Survey (CTAS) is a longitudinal cohort study of California stores that sell cigarettes. The data table shows the percentage of stores with tobacco advertisements near candy and those with tobacco advertisements below three feet in 2008 and 2011, broken down by store type. Tobacco advertisements placed below three feet are easier for children to see, and advertisements near candy are in a location that is likely to draw a child's attention. The sampling excluded stores that required either club membership (e.g., Costco or golf courses) or had minimum-age restrictions (e.g., bars). Also excluded were stores that were unusual store categories that were unlikely to display or advertise tobacco products, such as donut shops. The baseline sample (CTAS 2008) is historical. The original sample was derived from a 1997 list of 40,186 cigarette retailers, as enumerated by the California Board of Equalization (BOE). The sample stores and addresses were matched to the 2011 retailer licensing list, which was supplied by the BOE to the California Tobacco Control Program. Of the 545 stores with valid data in 2008, 442 (81.1 percent) were verified by phone as still selling cigarettes. A randomly selected list of stores from the 2011 licensing list was also phone verified. This list was used to replace all 2008 stores that were no longer in business or no longer sold cigarettes. It was also used to increase the sample size by approximately 100 stores in order to better detect differences between store types.