Heckman CJ, et al. - Authors aimed to probe the relationship between indoor tanning and skin cancer (SC) screening. Few indoor tanners (ITs) have been screened for SC, despite they had higher SC rates than that in nontanners (NTs). As per data, it was not surprising that among ITs, SC screening was related to SC risk factors (eg, family history of SC and age). Nonetheless, compared to the ITs who have been screened for SC, some unscreened ITs could be putting themselves at even greater risk of SC by also being more likely to use low SPF sunscreen.

Methods

• With 30,352 US adults participating, the 2015 National Health Interview Survey was a multistage, clustered, cross-sectional design.
• After excluding 1,099 individuals who reported a history of SC and 2,221 individuals with unknown SC screening or indoor tanning history, the response rate for the sample adult data used in this study was 55.20%.
• Experts conducted multiple logistic regressions separately for ITs and nontanners (NTs), simultaneously including all preselected variables of interest as potential predictors to examine the independent correlates of screening.
• In order to determine if the covariate impacts differed significantly between ITs and NTs, formal interaction analyses were also performed.
• Exposures include were the indoor tanning as well as sociodemographic, health care, and SC risk and sun protection factors.
• Self-reported full-body SC screening by a physician was the primary outcome.
• For determining the secondary outcome, correlates of SC screening among ITs and Nts, univariable and multivariable analyses were conducted.

Results

• Findings suggested that a total of 15,777 participants (51.98%) were female, and 23,823 (78.49%) were white; 4,987 (16.43%) of the sample had indoor tanned, and 1,077 (21.59%) of these had tanned last year.
• They had screened a total of 1,505 ITs (30.18%) and 4,951 NTs (19.52%) for SC.
• As per the data, correlates of screening for ITs and NTs were older age (ITs: odds ratio [OR], 4.29 [95% CI, 2.72-6.76]; NTs, OR, 5.14 [95% CI, 4.01-6.58], age ≥65 years vs 18-29 years), higher income (ITs: OR, 2.08 [95% CI, 1.50-2.88]; NTs: OR, 1.79 [95% CI, 1.51-2.12]; >$100,000 vs $0-34,999), seeking online health information (ITs, OR, 0.71 [95% CI. 0.56-0.91; NTs, OR, 0.65 [95% CI, 0.58-0.72], for not looking up health info online), family history of melanoma (ITs: OR, 1.92 [95% CI, 1.26-2.93]; NTs: OR, 1.58 [95% CI, 1.21-2.05]) or SC (ITs: OR, 1.59 [95% CI, 1.17-2.17; NTs: OR, 1.61 [95% CI, 1.33-1.94]), very high SPF sunscreen use (ITs: OR, 0.57 [95% CI, 0.42-0.78]; NTs: OR, 0.71 [95% CI, 0.61-0.82], use of SPF of 1-14 vs SPF of >50), and receipt of a professional spray-on tan (ITs: OR, 0.60 [ 95% CI, 0.41-0.88]; NTs: OR, 0.51 [95% CI, 0.32-0.81], for not receiving a salon spray-on tan).
• Authors noted that the correlates for NTs only to be white race (blacks: OR, 0.45 [95% CI, 0.37-0.54], others: OR, 0.40 [95% CI, 0.33-0.48]), non-Hispanic ethnicity (Hispanics: OR, 0.42 [95% CI, 0.36-0.50]), email use (no email: OR, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.56-0.80]), having a usual clinic/or physician’s office (no usual place: OR, 0.56 [95% CI, 0.40-0.78]), emergency department visits (OR, 1.20 [95% CI, 1.06-1.35]), having had a previous cancer diagnosis (no cancer diagnosis: OR, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.57-0.79]), not being worried about medical bills (OR, 1.37 [95% CI, 1.15-1.63] vs very worried), sun protection (rarely/never: OR, 0.43 [95% CI, 0.34-0.56]), and sunless self-tanning (not using: OR, 0.62 [95% CI, 0.47-0.83]).