ALCOHOL AND CIGARETTE ADVERTISING ON BILLBOARDS

We report an analysis of 901 billboards in San Francisco, California. Using neighborhood census data, we assessed how billboard advertising of tobacco and alcohol products differed in Asian, black, Hispanic and white neighborhoods. The data illustrate that: (1) across all billboard advertising of products and services, tobacco (19%) and alcohol (17%) were most heavily advertised; (2) black neighborhoods had the highest rate of billboards per 1000 population; (3) black and Hispanic neighborhoods had proportionately more tobacco and alcohol billboards than white or Asian neighborhoods; (4) black neighborhoods were proportionately more likely than other neighborhoods to have billboard advertising of menthol cigarettes and malt liquor while advertising of beer/wine was proportionately higher in Hispanic neighborhoods. © 1991 Oxford University Press.