23/01/2025
Sharing this insightful paper that analyzes indoor tanning regulation bills in US state legislatures from 1992-2023. You will recognize many National Council members and friends in the byline!
From the article:
"Indoor tanning is regulated by both state legislation and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. Laws restricting indoor tanning have been enacted in several states. An FDA regulation to ban indoor tanning by minors was originally proposed in 2015 but later was paused during the first Trump administration and has still not been finalized. Research on the process of how policy efforts translate into actual state indoor tanning laws is limited, mainly focused on describing existing laws and consequences of outlawing indoor tanning facilities in certain states or US regions. Indoor tanning regulations may have contributed to the recent decrease in indoor tanning prevalence among adolescents.
Using legal mapping methods that involved collecting and coding content of all available state indoor tanning legislation in 50 US states, the District of Columbia (DC), and Puerto Rico, we sought to address 3 primary research objectives:
(1) to describe the progression of state indoor tanning legislation (i.e., enacted or failed)
(2) to detail the content and stringency of bills with special attention to whether bills banned indoor tanning by minors (i.e., individuals aged younger than 18 years, hereafter “under-18 ban”)
(3) to explore the potential impact of political party affiliation of state government leadership when bills were proposed.
..The large proportion of under-18 bans in states across the political spectrum suggests a “tipping point” has been achieved, which may motivate other states or the FDA to prohibit minors from using indoor tanning facilities. Some advocates contemplate expanding restrictions on indoor tanning. New York recently considered, but did not enact, a ban on individuals aged younger than 21 years. Similar age restrictions on to***co, alcohol, and gambling may make under-21 indoor tanning bans less controversial. Three countries outlawed all commercial indoor tanning facilities, as recommended by the World Health Organization, but whether US legislators or the public would find this is acceptable is uncertain. Unless an FDA ban is finalized, further restrictions will be incremental, but the under-18 bans in almost half of US states may have laid the foundation for such efforts."
Read here: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2024.30789
🖤 Thank you to everyone who worked on this important study. We appreciate you!