UV tanning advertisements in national high school newspapers
Abstract
Many young adults have utilized indoor ultraviolet(UV) tanning, putting them at higher risk fordevelopment of skin cancers. Prior to the increasedregulations on indoor tanning for minors, indoortanning businesses marketed to teens throughmodalities such as advertisements in high schoolnewspapers. The purpose of this study was toquantify tanning advertisements in high schoolnewspapers published across the United Statesbetween August 2014 and July 2015. Online versionsof the newspaper issues were available on issuu.com.Tanning advertisements appeared in 3 of 23 highschool newspapers with advertisements of any kind(13%). Among all newspapers with advertisements,10% were indoor tanning advertisements. Onenewspaper in Colorado contained advertisements ofany kind and had 0 tanning advertisements. A priorstudy of Colorado high schools showed 11 of 23schools (48%) to contain tanning advertisements. Thissuggests that there may be a decrease in indoor UVtanning advertisements owing to increased tanningregulation by state legislatures, national attentionto UV tanning, or a general decrease in high schooltanning advertisements.