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Objective: Underage tobacco sales is considered a serious public health problem in Los Angeles. Anecdotally, rates have been thought to be quite high. In this paper, using spatial statistical techniques, we describe underage tobacco sales, identifying areas with high levels of sales and hot spots controlling for sociodemographic measures. Methods: Six hundred eighty-nine tobacco outlets were investigated throughout the city of Los Angeles in 2001. We consider the factors that explain vendor location of illegal sales of tobacco to underage youth and focus on those areas with especially high rates of illegal sales when controlling for other independent measures. Using data from the census, the LA City Attorney's Office, and public records on school locations in Los Angeles, we employ general least-squares (GLS) estimators in order to avoid biased estimates. Main outcome measure: vendor location of underage tobacco compliance checks, violators, and nonviolators. Results: Underage tobacco sales in Los Angeles were very high (33.5%) for the entire city in 2001. In many zip codes this rate is considerably higher (60%-100%). When conducting spatial modeling, lower income and ethnicity were strongly associated with increases in underage tobacco sales. Hotspot areas of underage tobacco sales also had much lower mean family income and a much higher percentage of foreign born and greater population density. Conclusions: Spatial techniques were used to better identify areas where vendors sell tobacco to underage youth. Lower income areas were much more likely to both have higher rates of underage tobacco sales and to be a hot spot for such sales. Population density is also significantly associated with underage tobacco sales. The study's limitations are noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the voting patterns in the 1982 Nuclear Freeze Referendum in California through the use of a standard empirical model of consequentialist voting. Classifications of voters; Factor that leads to divergence in private and social costs of security production; Reason behind the differences within the labor class in the rents associated with a shift from nuclear to conventional warfare.

Smoking rates across U.S. states have declined at different rates over time because some states have progressive tobacco control policies, whereas others have yet to adopt them. Therefore, each state has its own unique historical experience of smoking initiation, cessation, and prevalence. This study characterizes smoking histories for each U.S. state by birth cohort. Using 1965–2018 National Health Interview Survey and 1992–2019 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey data, statistical methods applied an age‒period‒cohort modeling framework to reconstruct population-level smoking histories for each state. Smoking initiation, cessation, and intensity by age, gender, and cohort were estimated for each state. These were used to construct state-specific trends in the prevalence of current, former, and never smoking as well as the mean smoking duration and pack years. Analysis was conducted from 2017 to 2022. California and Kentucky, respectively, are exemplar states of more and less aggressive tobacco control. Initiation probabilities were consistently lower in California than in Kentucky, and cessation probabilities were higher. Hence, the smoking prevalence derived from these parameters is higher in Kentucky. The intensity of cigarette smoking was higher in Kentucky than in California, yielding considerably higher estimated pack years when used with the other parameters. Summaries of smoking trends are given for all states. Smoking initiation, cessation, and intensity trends vary substantially across states, resulting in major differences in estimated smoking prevalence, duration, and pack years. Some states show improvements in smoking metrics over time with more recent birth cohorts, but others have shown very little. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the quantity smoked is known to affect smokers' health risks and likelihood of cessation, little is known about trends in quantity smoked and the role of policies in affecting those trends. We examined trends in quantity smoked using a new measure derived from U.S. Department of Agriculture per-capita cigarette consumption (PCC) and smoking prevalence data. We compared this measure to a survey measure of mean cigarettes smoked per day from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Using our measure, we examined trends in quantity smoked at the national level from 1974 to 2004 and for two states, California and Massachusetts. We used regression analysis to distinguish price and other policy-related trends from long-term trends. The derived measure of quantity tracked well with the NHIS measure. Through 1990, changes in quantity were well explained by price changes, with no residual trend in quantity smoked. Since 1990, price showed similar effects, but a downward trend was observed. In California and Massachusetts the initiation of a comprehensive tobacco program as well as price and tax changes were found to explain trends in quantity smoked. Continued progress in reducing the quantity smoked is likely to require the consistent implementation of current policies and the introduction of new policies. Although sustained reductions in quantity smoked may take a long time to affect smokers' health outcomes, sustained reductions appear to be related to cessation. The measure developed in the present study provides a useful tool for tracking trends in quantity smoked.

Tobacco control policies are examined utilizing a simulation model for California, the state with the longest running comprehensive program. We assess the impact of the California Tobacco Control Program (CTCP) and surrounding price changes on smoking prevalence and smoking-attributable deaths. Modeling begins in 1988 and progresses chronologically to 2004, and considers four types of policies (taxes, mass media, clean air laws, and youth access policies) independently and as a package. The model is validated against existing smoking prevalence estimates. The difference in trends between predicted smoking rates from the model and other commonly used estimates of smoking prevalence for the overall period were generally small. The model also predicted some important changes in trend, which occurred with changes in policy. The California SimSmoke model estimates that tobacco control policies reduced smoking rates in California by an additional 25% relative to the level that they would have been if policies were kept at their 1988 level. By 2004, the model attributes 59% of the reduction to price increases, 28% of the overall effect to media policies, 11% to clean air laws, and only a small percent to youth access policies. The model estimates that over 5000 lives will be saved in the year 2010 alone as a result of the CTCP and industry-initiated price increases, and that over 50,000 lives were saved over the period 1988-2010. Tobacco control policies implemented as comprehensive tobacco control strategies have significantly impacted smoking rates. Further tax increases should lead to additional lives saved, and additional policies may result in further impacts on smoking rates, and consequently on smoking-attributable health outcomes in the population.