# Community Awareness-Raising to Support Tobacco Policy: Results from an App-Based Photo-Mapping Activity with College Students

## TL;DR

A smartphone app helped college students become more aware of tobacco's impact in their communities, potentially supporting stronger tobacco policies.

## Contribution

This study introduces an app-based photo-mapping method to raise awareness of tobacco-related issues among young adults.

## Key findings

- Participants showed increased awareness of tobacco advertising and litter after using the app.
- Engaged users developed stronger anti-tobacco industry attitudes and supported tobacco-free campus policies.
- The app was linked to increased perceptions that there are too many tobacco retailers.

## Abstract

The tobacco retailer environment (TRE) harms communities, but the implementation of policies to address it have been slow and uneven and receive tepid public support.

To test whether a smartphone app’s photo-mapping activity could raise community awareness of the TRE.

This was a non-randomized study with a pre-post design. For three weeks, 75 university students engaged with the app, which incentivized participants to submit photos of significant aspects of tobacco in their environments (e.g., tobacco litter, tobacco retailers). Surveys administered before and after the app period assessed tobacco- and policy-related perceptions.

Repeated-measures analyses indicated that, over the course of the study, participants increased in their awareness of tobacco advertising, awareness of tobacco litter, anti-tobacco industry attitudes, and support for an outdoor tobacco-free campus policy. Those most engaged in the study (as indicated by the total number of photo submissions) also increased in their attitudes about there being too many tobacco retailers.

Overall, findings suggest an app-based, photo-mapping activity could be an innovative means of directing people’s attention to the impact of the tobacco industry in their local community. Such activities could help increase public support for tobacco retailer licensing and other TRE-focused policies.