Density and hotspots of outdoor tobacco advertising around schools in Semarang, Indonesia: geospatial analysis

Background: Indonesia has the second-highest smoking prevalence among adult males in the world, with over 61.4 million current smokers. However, there is no national regulation on outdoor tobacco advertising. Objective: The study aims to assess the density and hotspots of outdoor tobacco advertisements around schools in Indonesia with Semarang city as an example. Methods: We conducted geospatial analyses using buffer and hotspot analyses using advertisement and school data in ArcMap 10.6. We statistically test the significance of different densities, including between area 100 meter and 100-300-meter buffers from schools using Stata 15.1. Results: We found a total of 3,453 advertisements, of which 3,026 (87%) were at least medium in size (1.3×l.9 meters), and 2,556 (74%) were within 300 meters from schools. We also found a 45% higher density of advertisements within 100-meter around schools (compared to within 100-300 meters). There were 378 schools (39%) were in the advertisement hotspots. Conclusion: There were high density and significant hotspots of outdoor tobacco advertising around schools in Semarang city. Policy implications were discussed