Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Tanning bed use, particularly among teenaged girls and young women, has become increasingly commonplace in the United States, often exceeding smoking in these populations.[1][2][3][4] Contrary to misconceptions that tanning beds are only used for special occasions, more than 40% of those who use tanning beds do so more than 10 times per year.2-4 Furthermore, the past 2 years have been marked by well-respected studies with large sample sizes strongly linking tanning beds to melanoma and other skin cancers.1,5,6 Fueled by the proliferation of tanning salons in the United States, which now seem to outnumber Starbucks or McDonalds, and a very low per-use cost, nearly 40% of girls aged 16 and 17 years have used tanning beds in the past year, and more than 1 million people tan in tanning salons each day in the United States.In response, coordinated efforts led by skin cancer patient advocates and physicians have resulted in restrictions in many states and a first-time ban in the United States on the use of tanning beds for children younger than 18 years in California and Vermont.Many other parts of the world now ban tanning beds for youth, and Brazil and part of Australia (New South Wales) have population-wide bans.We are now in the incipient stage of a public health campaign akin to the one that reduced smoking in teens, and the parallel components are striking.Advocates work to enact statewide legislation, public health experts and industry testify at FDA hearings, media attention has heightened, and federal tax policies to disincentivize use have been instituted.
Institution: Harvard University
Language: English
Topic: Skin Protection and Aging
Subfield: Dermatology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2305836183