May 18th, 2020: Skin Cancer Awareness Month & Don’t Fry Day (May 22nd)
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While skin cancer is rare in children, 1 in 5 Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime. Experiencing just one bad sunburn as a child or teen, or five sunburns by any age, doubles your risk of getting melanoma, a type of skin cancer. Families may be feeling cooped up after a long winter and rainy spring, especially while social distancing and staying at home. However, it’s important to resist the urge to spend all day in the sun without protection. Follow these sun safety steps to enjoy the warmer weather safely:
Stay in the shade whenever possible and avoid midday sun. UV rays are especially strong between 10 AM and 4 PM.
Cover up with a wide-brimmed hat and a long-sleeved shirt and long pants.
Wear UV-blocking sunglasses. Look for a tag that says the lenses block 99% or more UV radiation.
Use sunscreen every day. Use a broad-spectrum (UVA/UVB) sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher. Be sure to reapply every 2 hours or after swimming or sweating.
For infants under the age of 6 months, the AAP states, “Use sunscreen on small areas of the body, such as the face, if protective clothing and shade are not available.”
The Fourth Annual National Sun Safety Day, Don’t Fry Day, promotes education and awareness about sun safety before many families spend time outdoors over Memorial Day weekend and begin the season of summer outdoor activities.
Dr. Sarah Denny Gives Parents the AAP’s Tips on Protecting Children from Sunburn (Video)
COVID-19 Quick Tip
To avoid heading to the store, some parents may be tempted to make “homemade” sunscreen to protect their child’s skin from harmful rays. It’s important to resist the urge to get creative — with homemade sunscreen, you can’t be sure that it is safe or effective. Homemade products are not regulated or tested like the products you can buy at the store.
Homemade Sunscreen Recipes Promise Protection, But May Put Kids At Risk for Burns
Action of the Week
Every Monday, we are promoting a new action that each family can take to keep their children safer while social distancing. This week, we want every family to protect their children’s skin with sunscreen. When applying sunscreen, it’s important to put it on at least 30 minutes before spending time in the sun. Make sure it is at least SPF 30, and reapply every 2 hours (apply more often if your child is sweating or swimming). For more information about sun safety and sunscreen, check out this page from HealthyChildren.org.
Contest
Show us how you’ve been preventing child injury at home and you could win $500!
Document how you use our toolkits or participate in outreach weeks (our most recent outreach week was last week’s swimming pool safety!) with pictures, videos, or screenshots. Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:
Best Use of a Prevent Child Injury Toolkit
Best Use of Prevent Child Injury Social Media Graphics
Most Creative Use of a Prevent Child Injury Toolkit
You don't have to submit to a specific category -- we will evaluate it to see which category it fits into best.
We will accept multiple submissions from the same individual/organization if it is not a copy of a previous submission. Share the contest guidelines with your friends, family, and colleagues!
Our contest is open until June 29th, 2020. Read more about the contest here. Please send submissions to contests@preventchildinjury.org.
Coming Up
On Our Calendar
May 25 - 31: Poison Prevention at Home
June 1 - 7: National Safety Month
Events
Attend Columbia University’s ICRC Annual Injury and Violence Prevention Conference this Thursday, May 21st, from 10AM - 4PM EST. “The conference will provide the opportunity to converse with your injury prevention colleagues in academia, health departments, hospitals and other organizations to discuss cutting-edge research and best practices in injury and violence prevention.” Register (for free!) for the conference here.
The Children’s Safety Network (CSN) is hosting a webinar titled “Highlights from the Child Safety Learning Collaborative” on Thursday, May 21st from 3 - 4PM EST. The webinar “will highlight how states work together through the CSLC to achieve health results by building capacity to improve state injury and violence prevention systems.” Register for the webinar (for free!) here.
Thank You Notes
Thank you to all who reached out to us about registering for the 4th Annual National Summit for Health Communication! We were thrilled by how many of our members were interested in learning more about health communication. We hope to have more opportunities like this in the future, so stay tuned.
We also want to thank all of you for participating in our swimming pool safety outreach week! We appreciate all of the hard work that you do to keep your communities safer.