Why Don ’t We Take Tanning As Seriously As Tobacco?

With our Back to School series highlighting how best to navigate through the college journey; we also revisit a series that ran last year in May covering the hazards of indoor tanning beds. The following is one of the posts that spoke to the risks and concerns as they relate to skin cancer. It’s Flashback Friday here at Disruptive Women in Health Care! With May being Skin Cancer Awareness Month and in tandem with our event Wednesday co-hosted with the Congressional Families Cancer Prevention Program, The Hazards and Allure of Indoor Tanning Beds on College Campuses we are running a series on skin cancer. Be sure to check back daily for posts on skin cancer including how you prevent and detect it. Enjoy! In 2009, upon review of the science on tanning beds and cancer, the International Agency for Research on Cancer assigned tanning beds a class 1 carcinogen, joining tobacco and asbestos in the highest classification of harm. In spite of this development, skin cancer rates have steadily climbed over the last 3 decades. Rising prevalence is seen especially in young women, with an 8-fold increase since 1970. Melanoma, the deadly form of skin cancer is now the most common cancer in young adults aged 25-29. Skin cancer is hitting young women especially hard because they are the heaviest users of tanning beds. Recent statistics reveal that 19% of teens and over half of university students have used tanning beds. The risk of indoor tanning to population health has even exceeded...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Cancer Wellness prevent cancer foundation Source Type: blogs