MANNHEIM, Germany, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Nearly 40 percent of Germans have used a tanning bed at least once and nearly 15 percent used one in the past year, researchers say.
The study, published in the Archives of Dermatology, was based on information culled from a nationwide telephone survey of 4,851 individuals ages 14-45 -- about half men and half women, said Sven Schneider of the Mannheim Institute of Public Health at Heidelberg University in Mannheim, who conducted the study with colleagues.
"The prevalence of ever use of tanning beds among those ages 14-45 in Germany was 39.2 percent, and every seventh person in this age group had used a sunbed during the last 12 months," the study authors said in a statement. "A particularly large percentage of women, adolescents, immigrants and the employed reported using solariums."
Forty-nine percent of women and 30 percent of men said they had used a tanning bed at least once. Currently, 17.7 percent of women said they were using tanning beds, while 12 percent of men said they were using tanning beds, the study found.
