English local government restrictions on harmful commodity advertising and their associations with sociodemographic and political factors: A nationwide policy document analysis

Background
There is strong evidence that advertising commodities which harm human and/or planetary health increases their consumption and exacerbates health inequalities. Yet there has been little evaluation of local government policies that restrict such advertising. We aimed to assess what policy restrictions local authorities in England place on advertising harmful commodities and explore local authority characteristics associated with these restrictions.

Methods
We systematically searched for advertising policy documents pertaining to local authorities in England and extracted key information, including restrictions placed on advertising harmful commodities. We used logistic regression to explore local authority characteristics associated with having these restrictions.

Results
Only a third (N = 113; 33.9%) of local authorities in England were found to have advertising policies by June 2025. Most policies included restrictions on advertising tobacco products (86.7%), alcohol (72.6%), gambling (76.1%) and/or high-interest loans (66.4%). A minority included advertising restrictions for unhealthy foods (41.6%), e-cigarettes (26.6%), high-carbon commodities (15.0%), unregulated health products (9.7%), formula milk (5.6%), weight loss products (7.1%) and cosmetic surgery (4.4%). In the unadjusted analyses, larger, more population-dense local authorities and those with younger populations and greater income inequality and deprivation were more likely to have restrictions on advertising a range of harmful commodities, particularly unhealthy foods. After adjusting for covariates, population size remained strongly associated with having advertising restrictions for tobacco products, gambling, alcohol, unhealthy foods and high-interest loans. Conversely, greater ethnic diversity was associated with a lower likelihood of having restrictions on advertising e-cigarettes, high-interest loans and unhealthy foods.

Conclusions
A third of English local authorities have adopted advertising restriction policies to date, which vary widely in the harmful commodity advertising restrictions they include. Future research should explore how to support policy adoption among local authorities less likely to introduce these policies, and help to inform evidence-based best-practice guidelines for greater policy consistency.