More than one-third of teens who undergo indoor tanning do so frequently, according to data from a survey of 1,850 public high school students from 27 schools in New Jersey.
The data were part of the 2012 New Jersey Youth Tobacco Survey, taken before New Jersey banned indoor tanning for individuals younger than 17 years of age in 2013. A total of 146 respondents reported indoor tanning within the past year, and approximately 38% reported 10 or more tanning sessions, wrote Elliot J. Coups, Ph.D., of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick, and colleagues.
Overall, “frequent indoor tanning was significantly more common among indoor tanners who were current smokers, tanned to improve their mood, had used social media related to tanning salons, or indicated it would be very hard to stop indoor tanning,” the researchers noted, adding that social media might be an opportunity for interventions to reduce indoor tanning in this population.
Find the study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (doi:10.1016/j.jaad.2015.01.035).