Assessing occupational UV exposure: selected results from the SimUVEx model and perspectives

Although solar ultraviolet (UV) yields favourable health effects, chronic (occupational) UV exposure is responsible of most epithelial skin cancers. The dose-response between sun exposure and skin cancer occurrence is not yet fully understood. Exposure data is limited because individual exposure assessment is tedious, costly and challenging (prone to epidemiological bias, limited to short-term exposure and specific exposure setting, and cannot account for the large intra-individual (anatomical) variations in UV doses received). A multidisciplinary team gathering competencies in meteorology, 3D computing sciences, public health and exposure sciences, developed a numeric simulation tool (SimUVEx) to predict anatomical UV exposure. SimUVEx uses 3D computer graphics techniques to compute UV doses based on postural information and ambient UV measurements. It allows assessment of specific exposure scenarios, taking into account body surface inclination, orientation to the sun, shading from other body parts, and radiation component (direct, diffuse, reflected)