Editorial

What's the Price of a Tan?

Deborah K. Mayer

preventive health services, communication
CJON 2012, 16(4), 337-337. DOI: 10.1188/12.CJON.337

Growing up, I would use baby oil and iodine and lay out in the sun to get a good tan. And my daughter did what her friends were doing and got a tan at a tanning salon before the prom. Now it is hard to drive by a group of stores without seeing a tanning salon. In the past 30 years, we have seen the results of all that tanning: wrinkled, aged skin and a growing number of skin cancers. Today, almost half of us reaching 65 years will have had at least one skin cancer. There were 3.5 million cases of basal and squamous skin cancers in 2006 (American Cancer Society [ACS], 2012). Significant disfigurements can be associated with treating these cancers. More significantly, we have seen the number of people with melanoma increase each year, with 76,250 melanomas expected to be diagnosed in 2012 (ACS, 2012)

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    References

    American Cancer Society. (2012). Cancer prevention and early detection facts and figures 2012. Atlanta, GA: Author.
    Buller, D. B., Cokkinides, V., Hall, H. I., Hartman, A. M., Saraiya, M., Miller, E., … Glanz, K. (2011). Prevalence of sunburn, sun protection, and indoor tanning behaviors among Americans: Review from national surveys and case studies of three states. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 65(5, Suppl. 1), S114-S123.
    Lazovich, D., Vogel, R., Berwick, M., Weinstock, M., Anderson, K., & Warshaw, E. (2010). Indoor tanning and risk of melanoma: A case-control study in a highly exposed population. Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, 19, 1557-1568.
    Mayer, D., Layman, A., & Carlson, J. (2012). Sun protection behaviors of melanoma survivors. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 66, E9-E10.
    U. S. Food and Drug Administration. (2012). FDA sheds light on sunscreens. Retrieved from http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm258416.htm