An Appearance-Based Intervention to Reduce Teen Skin Cancer Risk

The project is designed to improve the understanding of, and ability to affect UV risk behavior in teenage populations. The International Agency for Research in Cancer classifies indoor tanning as "carcinogenic to humans." There is evidence that female indoor tanning use increases dramatically from freshman to senior years of high school (e.g., 25-40% of older high school girls) making high school a critical time period for anti-tanning interventions to be carried out. This proposal assesses the effectiveness of a skin cancer prevention website for a nationally representative sample of high school teens in a randomized controlled trial. Teens exposed to the website will report reduced indoor tanning intentions, frequency and overall percentage of users while increasing sun protective behaviors at long-term (i.e 18 month) follow-up.