The introduction of a POS display ban and concurrent measures was followed by significant reductions in initiation, experimental and regular smoking, attempted purchase of cigarettes, and reduced association between visiting tobacco-retailing stores and smoking behaviours. The findings suggest that POS display bans are important components of strategies to reduce smoking initiation among youth and young people.

Online researchers face whether to use radio buttons or drop downs when presenting respondents with “select one answer from many” questions. However, empirical evidence regarding response effects does not provide direction for favoring one. Using data collected in a New Zealand general population Web survey of 2,400 people, this study contributes to the decision process by investigating format response effects at multiple levels and exploring the potential for input mechanisms to interfere with drop-down answer selection. Format choice did not significantly affect survey completions, number of nonsubstantial answers, or time to completion. However, drop downs led to higher item nonresponse and longer response times. Furthermore, the 76% of respondents using scroll mice to complete the survey were prone to accidentally changing an answer if presented with drop-down questions. This increased average response times and skewed distribution of responses to the drop-down treatment questions toward the bottom of the response list. Implications of these findings for Web-based data collection are discussed.

ObjectiveWe examined whether the supply routes via which New Zealand adolescents aged 14–15 years accessed tobacco had changed during a period of dynamic policy activity.SettingWe analysed data from seven consecutive years (2006–2012) of the New Zealand Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) Year 10 survey, a nationwide cross-sectional annual survey.ParticipantsAll New Zealand schools teaching Year 10 students are invited to participate in the survey; school-level participation rates have ranged between 44% and 58% and more than 25 000 students have responded to the survey in each year. The results presented draw on the subsample who reported smoking when surveyed (N∼9200). The data were weighted by age, ethnicity and school socioeconomic status (SES) to remove effects of systematic over-response by New Zealand Europeans and under-response by those in lower SES groups from trend analyses.Primary and secondary outcome measuresThe survey measured adolescents’ main reported tobacco supply source.ResultsSmoking prevalence declined significantly (8.1%) over the period examined (linear tend coefficient: −0.74; 95% CI −1.03 to −0.45, significant p<0.01). Friends showed a significant decline in relative importance as a supply source while caregivers and other sources showed a significant increase over the period examined.ConclusionsThe findings show that social supply, particularly via friends, caregivers and others, such as older siblings, is a key tobacco source for adolescents; commercial supply is much less important. The findings raise questions about the additional measures needed to reduce smoking among youth. Endgame policies that make tobacco more difficult to obtain and less appealing and convenient to gift merit further investigation.

Young people support New Zealand's smoke-free goal and interventions that could help achieve it; this evidence should galvanise policy action, which remains out of step with public opinion.

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