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Below we report on recent advances in the field of data science at the University of Bremen and keep you informed about the activities of the DSC and its members. You will find news about research projects, education and training opportunities, transfer activities, and much more.

Results from a study conducted by the University of Bremen have shown that students are regularly confronted with tobacco outlets on their way to school. DSC Data Scientists Annika Nolte and Susanne de Vogel contributed to the study by supporting the research team in the geospatial data analysis.

The study systematically investigated the number of tobacco outlets located in the immediate vicinity of schools. The results clearly show that schoolchildren in Bremen regularly pass tobacco outlets on their school routes and are therefore exposed to tobacco advertising. On average, there are 7.46 tobacco outlets in the vicinity of every school in Bremen (within 500 meters of the school route). More information about the study's results can be found here.

These figures are relevant in the context of smoking prevention, as tobacco products can still be advertised at and in retail outlets. The number of sales outlets thus provides information on the extent to which children and adolescents are directly exposed to tobacco marketing on their way to school and back. The study’s outcomes suggest that the presence of tobacco advertising as well as the placement of tobacco products alongside everyday goods (such as candy by the checkout) contribute to the normalization of smoking for children and teenagers.

The team of researchers also included DSC data scientists Annika Nolte and Dr. Susanne de Vogel, who contributed to the project by supporting the development of the study’s general method and the R workflow. The programming language R was used to calculate the distances between elements of urban infrastructure. Since no official public data on tobacco retail outlets is available from the authorities, the geographic coordinates and addresses were extracted from online map services (Google Maps) and then related to the locations of schools in Bremen.

The study provides the first city-wide dataset on tobacco outlets in school environments in a German city, thereby filling an important research gap. The results could be used as a basis for further preventive measures. For comparison, the same analysis was conducted on tobacco outlets in Hamburg. The data collected there is currently being evaluated. Once the analysis is finished, the researchers plan to compile the results and submit them for publication. The methodological approach and R workflow developed in the study will also be applied to another research project to investigate the relation between the availability of food sources and the eating habits of study participants.