Epidemiol Health.  2021;43(1):e2021048. 10.4178/epih.e2021048.

Effect of tobacco outlet density on quit attempts in Korea: a multi-level analysis of the 2015 Korean Community Health Survey

• Kong J
• Cho Si

• KMID: 2522391
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4178/epih.e2021048

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
This study aimed to examine whether the regional density of tobacco outlets in Korea was associated with the likelihood of attempting to quit among smokers
METHODS
This study was designed as a secondary data analysis of a cross-sectional study. Data from the 2015 Korean Community Health Survey and tobacco outlet registrations in 17 metropolitan cities and provinces with 254 communities in Korea were used for the analysis. In total, 41,013 current smokers (≥19 years of age) were included. Multi-level logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate regional differences associated with smokers’ attempts to quit and to evaluate the effects of individual and regional characteristics on quit attempts.
RESULTS
Higher tobacco outlet density was associated with lower odds of attempting to quit. Smokers who resided in districts with the highest tobacco outlet density were 18% less likely to attempt quitting (odds ratio, 0.82; 95% confidence interval, 0.70 to 0.98) than smokers who resided in the regions with the lowest tobacco outlet density (intraclass correlation coefficient, 0.030).
CONCLUSIONS
This study showed that quit attempts were related to community-level factors, such as tobacco outlet density, as well as other individual factors. These findings support the implementation of national policies restricting the number of tobacco outlets within communities or zones and limiting tobacco marketing in tobacco outlets.

Keyword

Tobacco; Tobacco product; Tobacco industry; Smoking cessation; Multilevel analysis