 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Jean L. Forster, PhD1, Glorian C. Sorensen, PhD, MPH2, DeAnn Lazovich, PhD1, Andrea B. Hickle, MPH1, Marie-France Demierre, MD2, and Natania Remba, EdM2. (1) Division of Epidemiology, University of Minnesota, 1300 South Second St., Suite 300, Minneapolis, MN 55454-1015, (612) 626-8864, Forster@epi.umn.edu, (2) Department of Health and Social Behavior, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115-6096
Massachusetts requires that tanning businesses be licensed, inspected, and penalized for non-compliance with regulations, while the Minnesota law establishes standards with no mechanism for requiring compliance. Teens and adults posing as customers visited 100 randomly selected tanning businesses each in the Boston and Minneapolis areas, and a telephone survey was conducted with mangers in 126 of these businesses to determine how practices varied in the two states.
Business’ experiences reflect differences in the state laws: 90% of Massachusetts vs. 58% of Minnesota businesses reported having been inspected. Sanitation and provision of eyewear was also different in the two areas. Minneapolis area businesses were more likely to take sole responsibility for cleaning the beds after each use (91% vs. 37%), rather than expect customer to clean them. Protective eyewear was provided by at least 85% of businesses in the Minneapolis area, but only 30-40% of the time in Boston.
Minnesota businesses reported that teens were a much larger part of their customer base than Boston businesses. Almost all businesses reported that they require parental permission in some form for underage customers; however the specific requirement varied by business and did not necessarily conform to state law. We found that teens in both areas were asked for parental permission less than 25% of the time. Over 80% of businesses in both areas sold a session to a teen confederate.
These results imply the need for more attention to factors that promote compliance with the age-of-sale and other features of laws regulating tanning.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Adolescent Health, Public Health Policy
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.