Simulating the Impact of Zoning Policies on Equitably Reducing Neighborhood Tobacco Retailer Availability

Living in a neighborhood with greater tobacco retailer availability (TRA) is associated with tobacco use, and there are persistent neighborhood racialized and socioeconomic inequities in TRA. Zoning could be leveraged as an innovative policy tool to equitably reduce TRA. In this study, we simulated the effect of zoning policies on reducing inequities in TRA in Oklahoma City (OKC) and Tulsa (Oklahoma). We spatially joined locations of tobacco retailers, zoning areas, and census tract sociodemographic characteristics (year 2023). We conducted 500 simulations to randomly remove 5-90% (in increments of 5%) of tobacco retailers from different zones and then calculated the average count of tobacco retailers left in each city across all simulations (i.e., post-policy count). We examined the policy effects by comparing the baseline (i.e., no removal of tobacco retailers) to the post-policy count by neighborhood sociodemographic quintile (Q1 = lowest; Q5 = highest). Policies that limited the number of tobacco retailers in commercial zones had pro-equity effects. For example, in OKC, with each additional percentage of tobacco retailers removed from commercial zones, one additional tobacco retailer was removed from Q5 as compared to Q1 percentage of Black residents (Q5 -1.02; 95% CI -1.63, -0.41). However, some zoning policies had little effect or widened inequities. We provide promising evidence that tailored zoning policies may reduce inequities in TRA though zoning policies may not eliminate inequities. Local jurisdictions, especially those in preempted states, can conduct equity assessments to inform the design of pro-equity zoning-based policies, which may complement, but not replace, other TRA reduction policies.