Trial reportJournal of health communication2011
The effect of mystery shopper reports on age verification for tobacco purchases.
Trial report in Journal of health communication, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Group Randomized Trial of the Stop Service to Obviously-Impaired Patrons (S-STOP) Program to Prevent Overservice in Bars and Restaurants in College Communities.Substance use & misuse · 2021Trial
- Effects of a responsible retailing mystery shop intervention on age verification by servers and clerks in alcohol outlets: A cluster randomised cross-over trial.Drug and alcohol review · 2018Trial
- Mystery shopping of tobacco, nicotine and alcohol products in 20 European countries: a cross-sectional study in the JAPreventNCD project.European journal of public health · 2026Article
- Design and Feasibility Trial of Interventions to Reduce Young Adult Alcohol Use with Communities That Care Coalitions.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2026Article
- Adherence to Underage Alcohol Sales Regulations in the Republic of Cyprus: Evidence from Repeated Cross-Sectional Mystery Shopping Study.Nordisk alkohol- & narkotikatidskrift : NAT · 2026Article
- Cannabis Retailer Communication About Cannabis Products, Health Benefits, and Risks: A Mystery Shopper Study of Licensed Retailers in Five U.S. Cities.Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs · 2024Article
- Compliance Checks Decrease Cigarette Sales Rates to Pseudo-Underaged Mystery Shoppers: A Quasi-Experimental Control Group Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Sales of cigarettes to pseudo-underage mystery shoppers: Experiences from Stockholm County.Nordisk alkohol- & narkotikatidskrift : NAT · 2021Article
- Exploring the Point-of-Sale Among Vape Shops Across the United States: Audits Integrating a Mystery Shopper Approach.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2021Article
- A Process Evaluation of the Skin Cancer Prevention Act (Tanning Beds): A Survey of Ontario Public Health Units.Journal of community health · 2019Article
- Prices for Tobacco and Nontobacco Products in Pharmacies Versus Other Stores: Results From Retail Marketing Surveillance in California and in the United States.American journal of public health · 2016Article
- Tobacco outlet density, retailer cigarette sales without ID checks and enforcement of underage tobacco laws: associations with youths' cigarette smoking and beliefs.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2016Article
- Contextual and community factors associated with youth access to cigarettes through commercial sources.Tobacco control · 2014Article
- Implementing a reward and reminder underage drinking prevention program in convenience stores near Southern California American Indian reservations.The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse · 2012Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Mystery shops involving attempted tobacco purchases by young buyers have been implemented in order to monitor retail stores' performance in refusing underage sales. Anecdotal evidence suggests that mystery shop visits with immediate feedback to store personnel can improve age verification. This study investigated the effect of monthly and twice-monthly mystery shop reports on age verification. Mystery shoppers visited 45 Walgreens stores 20 times. The stores were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions. Control group stores received no feedback, whereas 2 treatment groups received feedback communications on every visit (twice monthly) or on every second visit (monthly) after baseline. Logit regression models tested whether each treatment group improved verification rates relative to the control group. Postbaseline verification rates were higher in both treatment groups than in the control group, but only the stores receiving monthly communications had a significantly greater improvement compared with the control group stores. Verification rates increased significantly during the study period for all 3 groups, with delayed improvement among control group stores. Communication between managers regarding the mystery shop program may account for the delayed age-verification improvements observed in the control group stores. Encouraging interstore communication might extend the benefits of mystery shop programs beyond those stores that receive this intervention.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.