Retailer’s Density and Single Stick Cigarette’s Accessibility among School-Age Children in Indonesia

Abstract

Objective:The density of single-stick cigarette sales is related to the increase in tobacco epidemic-related diseases. This study aims to provide evidence of retailers' density and radius around the school location, accessibility of single-stick cigarette selling among school-age children, and retailers' response regarding the restriction policy options in urban areas in Indonesia. Methods: It is a cross-sectional study. The retailers' spatial density and the radius around schools in Daerah Khusus Ibukota (DKI) Jakarta Province were investigated using Google Maps and Google Street View (GSV). The coordinates of retailers and schools were geo-coded to Kernel Density Map. The accessibility of single-stick cigarettes among children and restriction policy options for cigarette selling were derived from random sampling using surveys of 64 retailers based on Google Data results. Result: Virtually walking using google maps and GSV found 8,371 retailers in DKI Jakarta. There were ± 15 cigarette retailers every 1 km 2 , and an average of ± one cigarette retailer in every 1,000 residents. There were 456 (21.67%) retailers with a radius ≤ 100 meters around elementary schools, even an increase around junior high school locations of 167 (26.05%) retailers. The accessibility of cigarettes among children is easy because the price is relatively low, at Rp1,500/ $0.11 per stick. In addition, 58.1% of retailers allowed customers to buy on debt. Eleven percent of cigarette retailers intended to reduce the sale of cigarettes if the prohibition of single-stick cigarette sales were applied. Conclusion: Cigarette retailers were very dense and single-stick cigarettes were still accessible to children in Indonesia. The implementation of the prohibition on single-stick cigarette sales should be added for future tobacco control in developing countries such as Indonesia.

An overlooked market: loose cigarettes, informal vendors and their implications for tobacco taxation

“…Studies on Mexico [13][14][15] point to the use of single cigarettes as a harm reduction strategy; one on Colombia notes differences in price movements 16 ; and one in Indonesia argues that banning loose sales should be pursued to deter youth consumption. 17 However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no study that attempts a generalised account of these dynamics and of their effects on tobacco tax policies across as wide a set of countries as that covered here.…”