PHILADELPHIA – A new study suggests that cigarette ads are the “main message” on signs outside Philadelphia’s corner stores, gas stations and convenience stores, reports Philly.com.

“[T]hat message, in low-income areas helps the tobacco industry reach children in those neighborhoods long before they're old enough to legally buy its products,” writes the news source in reference to the University of Pennsylvania School of Design and the city Department of Public Health’s new study. The study, writes the news source, also suggests that stores with the most tobacco marketing also tend to advertise and display sugary beverages, candy and chips — “while healthier alternatives such as water, diet soda and low-fat milk are rarely advertised, if at all.”

Amy Hillier, an associate professor of city and regional planning at Penn's School of Design, directed a team of a 12 students and community members to visit 4,639 licensed tobacco retailers over eight months starting in 2011 and ending in 2012. “They're not distributed evenly around the city," Hillier told the news source. “There are a lot more opportunities to buy tobacco products in low-income neighborhoods, and a disproportionate exposure to advertising by the tobacco and sugary beverage industries."

Hillier said her team focused on tobacco retailers that they were able to visit and see from the inside. They reported that about one in eight of those establishments did not post legally required signs that said tobacco would not be sold to minors. Outside the stores, many illegally affixed tobacco ads to street signs or utility poles, or set up freestanding tobacco ads on sidewalks, according to the news source.

The new study reveals a closer look at territory already familiar to Hillier. In 2009, she led a study that compares the prevalence of "unhealthy" advertising for alcohol and sugary beverages, tobacco products and fast food in Austin, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. The news source notes that, according to the study, Philadelphia led in the number of "unhealthy" ads per square mile and their proximity to schools, day-care centers and other "child-serving institutions."