A research report authored by associate professor Mathew Gendle and Elizabeth Olszewski '09 has been published in the Spring 2010 issue of the Journal of the North Carolina Academy of Science.
“High-risk tanning behaviors, ultraviolet light dependence, and responses to the Addiction Potential Scale in university undergraduates” details work conducted by Gendle and Olszewski that examined the utility of the Addiction Potential Scale in the identification of problematic tanning behaviors in first-year female college students.
Compulsive tanning (sometimes referred to as “tanning addiction”) is an emerging public health problem in adolescents and young adults, and appears to share several neurobiological and behavioral similarities with substance dependence. More than 75 percent of the first-year female students sampled in this study indicated that they patronize tanning salons and/or tan outdoors.
Gendle and Olszewski concluded that the rate of ultraviolet light dependency (as measured with widely used clinical criteria) in their sample of female first-year private university students in the southeast is greater than 10 percent.
Olszewski is currently completing her master’s in public health at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Ore.