Auditing tobacco point-of-sale compliance near schools

What is shaping tobacco

Tobacco research sits at the meeting point of regulation, public health and farm livelihoods. Every study we take on in this sector follows strict ethical guidelines and focuses on compliance, awareness, livelihoods and cessation.

• Point-of-sale and packaging rules are tightly regulated
• Public-health programmes track awareness and cessation
• Farm households weigh alternative crops and livelihoods

A state health department, working in Three districts in North India. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.

Organisation

A state health department

Sector

Tobacco

Team engaged

Market Research

Services

Government research, Offline data collection, Data analytics & dashboards

The department wanted to know how well shops followed rules on health warnings, signage and sales near educational institutions, before planning enforcement and awareness drives.

• Deliver on the brief: auditing tobacco point-of-sale compliance near schools.
• Understand the views, needs and behaviour of retail outlets.
• Produce results that can be compared across groups and locations.
• Give the client evidence it can act on within 6 weeks.

The work focused on 1,800 retail outlets.

• retail outlets1,800

Audiences we typically reach in tobacco

Retailers and point-of-sale ownersTobacco farmersPublic-health programme teamsAdults trying to quitRegulators and enforcement officials

Coverage: Three districts in North India. Market: India.

• India

A structured quantitative design, so results could be compared across groups, locations and time.

1. 1Brief
2. 2Structured retail audits
3. 3Geo-tagged photo evidence
4. 4Insight

Trained auditors visited outlets with a structured checklist covering mandatory signage, displays and distance from schools, supported by geo-tagged photographs. Audits were randomly back-checked by supervisors.

Government researchOffline data collectionData analytics & dashboards

retail outlets

1,800

• Respondents were selected across Three districts in North India using quotas set in advance for each location and respondent type, so no single area or group dominated.

• Trained local-language interviewers conducted interviews in person, supervised in the field.
• Auditors and mystery shoppers followed a standard checklist, recording evidence at each visit.

• Back-checks on a share of completed interviews
• Time and location checks on field interviews
• Supervisor accompaniment in the field
• Photo or document evidence for audit points
• Second-reviewer checks on scores
• Logic and range checks on the final data
• Work carried out under our ISO 20252 quality procedures

• Interactive dashboard for ongoing tracking

• Compliance was much weaker within school zones in peri-urban areas than in city centres.

Geo-tagged evidence made the findings difficult to dispute and easy to act on.

• Build on the core insight: geo-tagged evidence made the findings difficult to dispute and easy to act on.
• Focus effort where the evidence was strongest: compliance was much weaker within school zones in peri-urban areas than in city centres.
• Re-measure after the changes to confirm the effect.

• The department focused enforcement and retailer awareness on those zones and repeated the audit six months later to track change.

What changed in the business as a result of the work. Impact is described qualitatively.

• Insight report and management presentation
• Cleaned data file and data tables
• Interactive dashboard
• Evaluation findings with programme recommendations

• Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
• A natural follow-on question: what would help farmers move to alternative crops?