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The Impact of Indoor Tanning Legislation: Newspaper Coverage of the Risks of Indoor Tanning Before and After the California Indoor Tanning Ban for Minors

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Abstract

On June 1, 2011, the California Senate passed a bill banning minors from indoor tanning. We aimed to determine whether the bill’s passage was associated with longer-term media coverage regarding skin protection and the risks associated with indoor tanning. Articles from 31 English-language California newspapers between June 2010–May 2011 (PRE) and June 2011–May 2012 (POST) were searched using terms related to skin protection. Ninety articles were found for in-depth coding and analysis. There were more skin protection articles in the POST period than in the PRE period (57 vs 33; p < .05). In addition, there were more POST articles mentioning the risks of indoor tanning (33 vs 10; p < .001), and a POST article was more likely to mention the risks (58 vs 30 %; p < .05). The higher number of POST articles mentioning the risks persisted throughout all quarters. Therefore, the California indoor tanning ban was associated with increased longer-term news coverage of skin protection and the risks associated with indoor tanning. This finding has potential influence on the many states that are considering comparable legislation.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Standards

The manuscript does not contain clinical studies or patient data.

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This study received no financial funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Jonathan E. Mayer & Alan C. Geller

  2. Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, 630 West 168th Street, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Jonathan E. Mayer

  3. Stanford University, 450 Broadway Street, Pavilion C, 2nd Floor, Redwood City, CA, 94063-5334, USA

    Susan M. Swetter

  4. Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, 94304, USA

    Susan M. Swetter

  5. AIM at Melanoma, 3040 Cutting Blvd, Richmond, CA, 94804, USA

    Samantha Guild

Authors
  1. Jonathan E. Mayer
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  2. Susan M. Swetter
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  3. Samantha Guild
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  4. Alan C. Geller
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jonathan E. Mayer.

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Mayer, J.E., Swetter, S.M., Guild, S. et al. The Impact of Indoor Tanning Legislation: Newspaper Coverage of the Risks of Indoor Tanning Before and After the California Indoor Tanning Ban for Minors. J Canc Educ 30, 124–129 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-014-0672-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-014-0672-4

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