Safety Tip of the Week – Skin Cancer Prevention

The sun is essential to all life on Earth, however too much exposure to the sun can be harmful to us. Excessive exposure to ultraviolet light, also called “UV Rays,” emitted from the sun can cause many skin conditions, as well as skin cancer.

Overexposing our skin to the sun’s ultraviolet rays causes skin cancer and skin damage. Outdoor workers have a higher risk of skin cancer, as they spend many hours outside.

Safety Tips to Prevent Skin Cancer:

• The best thing to do is to avoid excessive exposure to the skin and tanning beds altogether;
• Water resistant sunscreen should always be used on exposed skin (face, neck, arms, and back of hands);
  • For maximum protection, outdoor workers should wear sunscreen with a SPF 30+ rating and reapply every two to three hours;
  • When applying sunscreen, wipe it onto the skin; do not rub it into the skin;
• Most of our exposure to the sun in our lifetime occurs during childhood. While it may be too late to worry about whether we had adequate protection when we were a child, it is not too late to protect our children or our other young family members from being overexposed to the sun; and
• Periodically check yourself for irregular moles or markings on your skin. A new lesion on your skin, a new mole, or change in an existing mole may indicate skin cancer.

EARLY DETECTION SAVES LIVES!!!