Andrew Anesetti-Rothermel, GIS manager at the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at Truth Initiative, will present “What are the Effects of Tobacco Retailer Proximity to Schools?” a the next Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods seminar.
This session will be held Wednesday, April 12, from noon to 1:15 p.m. in the ground-floor conference room of the BioEnterprise Building. A light lunch will be served.
Anesetti-Rothermel will share results from a cross-sectional study that examined the effects of tobacco retailer proximity to schools. Specifically, researchers measured the availability of retail tobacco around each of 33 schools within six metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties across West Virginia. Findings suggest the need to contrast the inter-relationships between tobacco retailer density and proximity to schools within youth smoking studies.
Anesetti-Rothermel’s research focuses on understanding behaviors and decision-making in the context of both “when” and “where” by quantifying individual-level and neighborhood-level exposures to the retail tobacco environment in real time. His primary research has focused on tobacco marketing at the point of sale and has examined the role individual- and neighborhood-level tobacco retail environmental exposures (i.e., tobacco outlet density and tobacco outlet proximity) play in influencing tobacco use across a variety of socio-demographic factors and environmental contexts.
His work includes survey analyses, ecological momentary assessment of exposure to tobacco marketing, store audits and the processing and analyses of geospatial data, as well as managing the entire Truth Initiative GIS infrastructure and relevant geodatabases, including applications for public use on the internet.