The Falmouth safe skin project: evaluation of a community program to promote sun protection in youth

A multidimensional community-based skin cancer prevention program was conducted in Falmouth, Massa-chusetts, combining community activism with publicity campaigns and behavioral interventions to improve sun protection knowledge; attitudes; and practices in parents, caregivers, and children. The program was associ-ated with improvements in target outcomes, based on two telephone surveys of random samples of parents (n = 401, 404). After program implementation, fewer parents reported sunburning of their children, particularly among children 6 years old or younger (18.6 % in 1994 vs. 3.2 % in 1997), and more parents reported children using sunscreen, particularly continuous use at the beach (from 47.4 % to 69.9 % in younger children). Hat and shirt use did not increase. Improvements also were seen in parent role modeling of sun protection practices, par-ents’self-efficacy in protecting children from the sun, and sun protection knowledge. While these findings must be interpreted cautiously, they do suggest that this project was effective in promoting sun protection. There have been steady increases in melanoma incidence during the past 30 years,1 and new strategies are needed to control this preventable cancer. Given that the main environ-mental risk factor for melanoma is unprotected sun exposure and that exposures during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood seem to have the greatest adverse effects,2,3 promotion of sun protection in youth is crucial to primary melanoma prevention. In recen