Municipal tobacco bylaws: Use of geographic information systems to explore relationships between local ETS policy and community characteristics

Municipal environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) bylaws are increasingly prevalent in Canada, yet vary substantially in coverage, restrictiveness and strength. Community characteristics may play a role in the nature of the bylaw implemented, or in the initial adoption of the bylaw. The main purpose of this study was to examine associations between community-level variables, health region smoking rates, and adoption and strength of municipal ETS bylaws in Alberta and Ontario, Canada in 2001. A secondary purpose was to develop a GIS-user protocol for creating community profiles to explore associations among the variables as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be used to link datasets and display results in a way salient for policy-makers and others in public health.Secondary data from a 2001 bylaw survey, 1996 Census, and CCHS Cycle 1.1 (2000/2001) were linked for this study. Regression analyses were used to develop models for bylaw adoption and strength for Alberta (N = 78) and Ontario municipalities (N = 245). In Alberta, the final model on bylaw adoption included employment each in primary and tertiary industries. The model on bylaw strength included rural-urban designation, university education and gender. In Ontario, the bylaw adoption model included tier-level, municipal restructuring, population density, gender, high-school education and trade certification. The strength model included single-tier status, municipal restructuring, smoking rate, bylaw age, employment each in primary and tertiary industries, trade certification and university education. The differences across provinces may result from different provincial tobacco control environments, and findings suggest that a combination of community characteristics is important for local ETS bylaw adoption and strength.GIS was used to examine spatial and temporal patterns among the variables and to identify specific associations with ETS bylaw development. Thematic maps were created for bylaw prevalence and strength, and for each community variable to display basic coverage and variation in distribution across each province. Community profiles were created to identify attributes of bylaws by municipality type and vice versa. The maps and GIS user protocol produced are illustrative of effective use of GIS to generate informative and visually stimulating evidence that has utility for policy-makers and others interested in municipal ETS bylaw development.