Correlation Among Neighborhood-Level Measures of the Tobacco Retail Environment

Tobacco retailer density and distance to tobacco retailers are understood to influence tobacco-related behaviors; however, there is no general agreement on how to best characterize or measure the tobacco retail environment (TRE). In this data-driven analysis, we examine similarities among neighborhood-level measures of the TRE and assess how the geographic resolution of the neighborhood units may affect them.

We used locations of likely tobacco retailers in the United States to calculate multiple retailer count, density, and distance measures. Measures were calculated at the Census block group, tract, and county (including county equivalents) levels of geographic aggregation. Spearman's correlation was used to evaluate the similarity among the TRE measures.

At the block group and tract level, correlation among all TRE measures ranged from slightly negative (ρ = -0.03) to nearly perfect (ρ = 0.99). At both levels of aggregation, distance-based TRE measures were highly correlated (ρ > 0.76). At the block group level, the simple count of retailers was highly correlated with the density measures (ρ > 0.83), and at the tract level, simple count was moderately to highly correlated with the density measures (ρ > 0.5). Findings were generally similar at the county level; a notable deviation was that retailers per person were negatively correlated with all other TRE measures (range from ρ = -0.08 to ρ = -0.32).

Some common measures were not correlated, suggesting they capture different aspects of the TRE; similarity among the various measures also varied by level of geographic aggregation.

Because the TRE shapes people's tobacco-related behaviors, using appropriate measures to characterize it at a neighborhood level is paramount. Our work highlights both the similarities and differences among a set of common measures, thereby suggesting the measures may be capturing different aspects of the overall retail environment. Our findings regarding geographic level of aggregation underscore the importance of neighborhood definition in any TRE analysis.