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Tanning bed burns reported on Twitter: over 15,000 in 2013

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Translational Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Few surveillance tools exist for monitoring tanning bed injuries. Twitter data were examined to identify and describe reports of tanning bed-caused burns. Tweets sent in 2013 containing keywords for tanning bed use and burning were content analyzed to determine whether a burn caused by a tanning bed was described, and additional data on tanning behavior and burn characteristics were extracted. After content assessment, 15,178 (64 %) tweets were found to describe a tanning bed-caused burn. Sites most reportedly burnt were buttocks (n = 3117), face/head (n = 1020), and chest/breast (n = 546). Alarmingly, 200 burns to the eyes/eyelids were mentioned. A total of 456 tweets described burning >1 time from a tanning bed. A total of 211 tweets mentioned falling asleep inside the tanning bed. In 2013, over 15,000 tweets reported tanning bed-caused burns. Twitter data provides unique insight into tanning behaviors and injuries not captured through traditional public health surveillance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, 135 Dauer Drive, Chapel Hill, NC, CB 7440, USA

    Andrew B. Seidenberg MPH

  2. Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

    Sherry L. Pagoto PhD & Renata Dalla Costa BA

  3. National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland

    Theodore A. Vickey PhD

  4. Department of Dermatology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Eleni Linos MD, DrPH

  5. Department of Dermatology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Mackenzie R. Wehner MD, MPhil

  6. Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Alan C. Geller RN, MPH

Authors
  1. Andrew B. Seidenberg MPH
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  2. Sherry L. Pagoto PhD
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  3. Theodore A. Vickey PhD
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  4. Eleni Linos MD, DrPH
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  5. Mackenzie R. Wehner MD, MPhil
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  6. Renata Dalla Costa BA
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  7. Alan C. Geller RN, MPH
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrew B. Seidenberg MPH.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Melanoma Foundation of New England.

Conflict of interest

None of the authors has any conflicts of interest to disclose.

Ethics approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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Implications

Research: Questions assessing tanning bed-caused burning should be added to population-based surveys to help estimate the prevalence of tanning bed-caused injury.

Practice: Health campaigns are needed to educate the public on the risk of tanning bed-caused burns.

Policy: Policies are needed to reduce the harms caused by tanning bed use.

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Seidenberg, A.B., Pagoto, S.L., Vickey, T.A. et al. Tanning bed burns reported on Twitter: over 15,000 in 2013. Behav. Med. Pract. Policy Res. 6, 271–276 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13142-016-0388-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13142-016-0388-6

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