Hookah cafés target college students: An examination of community characteristics that predict the presence of hookah cafés

Anecdotal evidence suggests that hookah cafés, which serve tobacco for smoking in waterpipes, are highly concentrated in areas near college campuses. The data presented are the first to assess this hypothesis systematically. The sample included 10 states in the Southeastern US census region (NC, SC, TN, VA, AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, WV). Using an on-line directory of hookah cafés, we compiled lists of cafés and cross-matched 10% through phone book searches to authenticate the information. We found 91 hookah cafés in the 10 states (mean=9.1 per state, range=1-35). Communities were defined using 2000 place-level Census data. Within the 10 states, there were 4,825 places (cities, towns, or census designated places). Census and hookah café data were merged, resulting in 59 places that had one or more cafés. Logistic regression was used to investigate the relationship between hookah café status (yes/no) and community characteristics, including population size, percent White, percent Spanish-speaking, percent in college, median family income, and percent first ancestry reported as Arab. Results revealed that for every 1% increase in the size of the college population, there is a 7% increased odds of having a hookah café in the community (OR=1.07, 95%CI=1.05, 1.09). Population size (OR=1.28, 95%CI=1.22, 1.34), percent Arab ancestry (OR=1.33, 95%CI=1.08, 1.65), and median family income (lowest vs. highest quartile: OR=12.79, 95%CI=1.81, 90.24) were also associated with having a hookah café in a community. These findings lend credence to the hypothesis that hookah cafés target college students as an integral part of their consumer base.