Something different under the sun

Not all beachgoers go there for the same reason, so preaching the same sun-protection sermon won’t necessarily work to cut skin cancer rates, a new study suggests.

Writing in the Archives of Dermatology, Australian researchers report on a survey of the sun habits of 88 people on a beach in Hawaii. Mostly vacationers, they spent an average of about three hours on the beach, which for most of them equaled about five times the ultraviolet ray dose needed for a sunburn in fair-skinned individuals.

About 70 percent were intent on getting a tan, even though many had already gotten a sunburn in the last two days. About a quarter of this high-risk group said they’d been to a tanning booth in the month before. The remaining 30 percent of people on the beach fell into two other categories: They were either at lower risk for skin cancer and took few precautions or were at high risk and tried to avoid sun exposure by finding shade or covering up with more clothing.

The Hawaiian vacationers behaved a lot like other sun worshippers on the shore of Lake Michigan, Sherry L. Pagoto of the University of Massachusetts Medical School writes in an editorial appearing with the paper.

Pagoto studied Chicago sun habits in a paper published in 2004 in the American Journal of Health Behavior. In both settings, figuring out the motivation of beachgoers is important to crafting strategies to reduce their risk of skin cancer, whose incidence has grown rapidly over the last 30 years.

"What we found is there are different kinds of people who go out in the sun and they're not all there for the same reason and not all at the same level of risk," she said in an interview. "The type of intervention you put forth, whether you're a dermatologist dealing with someone clinically or a public health person wanting to develop a public health message, should probably consider the different subtypes."

For people who love to look tanned despite the risk of too much sun exposure, a sunless spray tan might hold some appeal. But that won't hold much allure for people who enjoy the beach for the friends they see there. Sunshine offers relaxation to still other people, who wouldn't find it in a spray-on tanning booth.

"Telling them you are at risk for skin cancer is not enough to get them out of the sun," Pagoto said. "Giving a safe alternative might be helpful."