Community Strategies to Lower Skin Cancer Risk

Overview

Communities play an important role in making sun safety possible for everyone.

Spending time outdoors offers many benefits to overall health and wellness by promoting physical activity, improving mental health, and reducing stress. But too much exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun can lead to skin cancer.1

The good news is there are strategies that communities can use to help people prevent skin cancer while enjoying time outdoors.

Community-level strategies for skin cancer prevention

Communities can help protect residents and create a healthy, safe environment by ensuring access to shade and sunscreen. Examples of evidence-based sun protection strategies that have been used successfully by others across the country include:

Expanding the area of a community that is shaded by trees.

• Trees can serve as a natural barrier to block UV rays from the sun, reducing the risk of skin cancer.
• Communities can help expand or protect tree coverage in community spaces in many ways, from building codes and zoning ordinances to stormwater management.2

Increasing availability of built shade structures that provide shelter from the sun.

• This could include shade for bus stops, playgrounds, pools, parks, and other recreational spaces used by the community.
• Shade structures allow people to enjoy the benefits of outdoor time while staying protected from UV rays.

Increasing access to sunscreen.

• This can include installation and maintenance of free sunscreen dispensers in outdoor community spaces3 and allowing students to carry and apply sunscreen at school.4
• Making sunscreen more accessible can support sun-safe behaviors and can help promote the idea that sun safety and skin health are important health issues in the community.

Cancer prevention in action: a success story

Vermont's statewide cancer coalition—Vermonters Taking Action Against Cancer (VTAAC)5-collaborated with Dartmouth Cancer Center, University of Vermont Cancer Center, and IMPACT Melanoma to implement a community sunscreen program. The program launched in 2018 with the placement of free sunscreen dispensers in 18 Vermont state parks and 8 municipal locations. Later, the program placed dispensers in 28 more sites.6

An evaluation of the program showed that the sunscreen dispensers were well-received and served as a convenient source of sunscreen for those who did not bring their own. And many of the sites reported plans to integrate sun-safety messaging into their social media posts, staff trainings, and flyers.

"Our goal is to meet people where they are," said VTAAC coordinator Hanna Snyder. "And not just with sunscreen, but to also make sure Vermonters have the information they need to understand sun safety, the risk [UV] exposure presents for cancer, and the actions they can take to keep themselves and their family safe outdoors."

Vermont has had other recent sun-safety successes, including:

• Passage of an act7 that requires schools to allow students to carry and apply sunscreen, with parent approval, on school property and at school events.
• Provision of free sunscreen dispensers and educational materials for Vermont health offices to use at events in their regions.

View Larger