In a new study from the Annenberg School for Communication, researchers found that smokers report higher levels of cigarette cravings when exposure to tobacco retail increased.
The study — published earlier this year in Jama Network Open — followed 273 participants in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Both geolocation and cigarette smoking outcomes were recorded across a 14-day period, and eligible participants smoked at least five cigarettes daily.
Though all data was collected from May 2022 to June 2024, the project idea originated in 2014. According to Nicole Cooper, the project’s research director and the managing director of research in Falk’s Communication Neuroscience Lab, the working team has evolved to incorporate experts in varying fields, including health communication, tobacco marketing, and geospatial analysis.
Emily Falk, an Annenberg professor, said that it is important for smokers to know that “being exposed to stores that sell tobacco is risky.”
“It’s important for policymakers to know this as well, because the places that sell tobacco are concentrated in communities that already have fewer resources,” Falk said to Penn Today. “For everyone, knowing how much the places we spend time might shape our decision-making is powerful.”
The researchers created a database containing 36,580 tobacco retailers across the tri-state area, including convenience stores, grocery stores, and smoke shops. Using this database, tobacco retail exposure was computed by comparing sites from the database to the location logs of participants.
Benjamin Muzekari, an Annenberg doctoral candidate who authored the study, clarified that the “exposure” does not differentiate between whether a participant is inside or outside the retailer, and that it is unknown whether participants were consciously aware of these encounters.
Falk added that the maps of where participants spend their time can allow researchers understand the aspects of their environment that may contribute to cigarette cravings, such as pollution exposure, heat, and time spent in green spaces.
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“We’re interested in how those broader factors might combine with exposure to risk factors like tobacco retail to make it more or less likely that people smoke, get exercise, or feel stress, and how this all adds up to more or less well-being,” she said.
