According to the SAFE study, carried out by Pierre Fabre’s Patient Centricity department in seven countries on a sample of more than 8,000 adults, sun protection advice is still insufficiently followed by consumers, particularly in children. This is a worrying finding when you consider that 50 to 80% of cumulative exposure occurs during early childhood, and is the leading cause of most skin cancers.
This survey of sun protection behaviors and exposure and in adults and children was carried out during high summer i.e., August 2021 in France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the USA, and January 2022 in Brazil and in Australia.
A total of 8,120 adults responsible for children (6,662 parents and 1,458 grandparents) were surveyed.
People don’t always fully understand the importance of sun protection
Some topics are still misunderstood, and myths refuse to go away:
• 45% of respondents did not know that UVB causes sunburn
• 27% of respondents did not know that UVA penetrates deep into the skin and speeds up the aging process
• 67% did not know that chemical filters absorb UV rays, and a further 21.7% thought that clouds gave protection from the sun
• 11.6% thought that being tanned meant you could stop bothering with sunscreen
The recommendations for sun exposure are not being followed
For over 30 years, the annual sun prevention campaigns run by health care authorities have been repeated on loop, always with the same messages: “stay out of the sun between 11am and 5pm”, “re-apply sunscreen every 2 hours… However, many people are ignoring this advice, and children are on the …
