Gabrielle Adams, a UNC undergraduate Pre-Med student, authored a new study in a special issue on Cancer for the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, entitled “Attitudes and Behaviors That Impact Skin Cancer Risk among Men.” Adam Goldstein, MD, MPH, Professor of Family Medicine and Director of Departmental Advancement, and Kristen Jarman, MSPH, Associate Director of the Tobacco Prevention and Evaluation Program, co-authored the study.
Gabrielle Adams, a UNC undergraduate Pre-Med student, authored a new study in a special issue on Cancer for the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, entitled “Attitudes and Behaviors That Impact Skin Cancer Risk among Men.” Adam Goldstein, MD, MPH, Professor of Family Medicine and Director of Departmental Advancement, and Kristen Jarman, MSPH, Associate Director of the Tobacco Prevention and Evaluation Program, were co-authors. The study set out to pinpoint how the attitudes of men towards tanning and sun exposure predicted their sun protective behaviors.
Goldstein states: “Given that few men or women realize that melanoma is projected to be the number one cause of cancer among men in twenty years and the third most common cancer among women, all primary care clinicians must start counseling their patients, particularly men, on daily sunscreen use and other sun protection methods.
Our national study of adult men showed that while the majority have extensive weekly outdoor sun exposure and believe that tanning is more rather than less healthy, only a minority regularly used sunscreen or other sun protective behaviors.”
Men are much more at risk of skin cancer because of their skin protective behavior. The authors believe this study may help raise awareness among men and providers that serious “misalignment exist among many men between risk, perception of risk, and behaviors to reduce risk” moving forward. They strongly advocate increased clinician counseling of all men to regularly use sunscreen and adopt other sun protection methods.