By Forrest Richardson, CSP, ARME
Director of Safety, Fit For Work
July is Ultraviolet (UV) Safety Awareness Month and a good time to talk about sun safety. Below Fit For Work’s Director of Safety answers some common questions about sun, skin cancer, and how to protect yourself from harmful UV rays.
What causes most skin cancers?
Most skin cancers are caused by exposure to the sun. This may be long-term exposure, or short periods of intense sun exposure and burning. The ultraviolet light in sunlight damages the DNA in skin cells. This damage can happen years before a cancer develops.
How likely am I to get skin cancer?
Overall, the lifetime risk of getting melanoma is about 3% (1 in 33) for white people, 0.1% (1 in 1,000) for African Americans, and 0.5% (1 in 200) for Hispanic people. However, each person’s risk can be affected by other factors, such as UV light exposure, moles, lighter skin, hair, eye color, and a family history of melanoma.
How can I reduce my risk of skin cancer?
Follow these outdoor sun safety tips.
• Wear clothing that covers your arms and legs
• Wear a hat with a wide brim to shade your face, head, ears, and neck
• Wear sunglasses that wrap around and block both UVA and UVB rays
• Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 15 or higher
Are there health risks associated with sunscreen chemicals?
Yes, in 2021, the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees sunscreen safety, proposed its latest update to regulations for these products.
The agency reviewed 16 ingredients and reported that only two, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, are “generally recognized as safe and effective,” or GRASE, based on the available information. A GRASE designation means the ingredient is widely recognized as safe and effective by experts.
The FDA proposed that 12 other ingredients are not GRASE due to insufficient data: avobenzone, cinoxate, dioxybenzone, ensulizole, homosalate, meradimate, octinoxate, octisalate, octocrylene, oxybenzone, padimate O, and sulisobenzone.
*While these twelve ingredients may not be GRASE, they are still allowed to be used in products on the U.S. market until the FDA completes its review on these chemicals.
Read more from the FDA here.
For additional resources, visit:
https://www.aad.org/member/advocacy/promote/uv-awareness
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/melanoma-skin-cancer/causes-risks-prevention/risk-factors.html
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