Oral Presentation Skin Cancer 2024

Physical Activity Predicts Unprotected Sun Exposure among Two High-Risk Groups (#20)

Tammy Stump 1 , Jayalakshmi Jain 2 , Nabil Alshurafa 2 , Siobhan M Phillips 2 , Payton Solk 2 , Whitney A Morelli 3 , June K Robinson 4
  1. Department of Dermatology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
  2. Department of Preventive Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA
  3. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
  4. Department of Dermatology, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA

According to epidemiological findings, individuals who engage in more physical activity (PA) have a greater skin cancer risk, presumably due to time spent outdoors when performing PA. To better understand the relationship between PA and sun exposure, we conducted a 7-day observational study among both melanoma survivors (n=20, Mage=62.8 year, 55% female) and young adult first-degree relatives of melanoma survivors (n=20, Mage=26.5 years, 75% female). Participants wore ultraviolet radiation (UVR) sensors and completed daily reports on their outdoor activities. Multilevel analysis revealed that activities with more minutes of moderate-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) were associated with greater unprotected UVR exposure, B=.79, t=9.96, p<.01. This association was evident at both the between- and within-subjects levels. In other words, more active individuals had greater unprotected sun exposure (B=.88, t=6.57, p<.001), and unprotected UVR exposure was higher when individuals were performing an activity that involved higher levels of MVPA than was usual for them (B=.75, t=8.33, p<.001). In exploratory analyses, we found that the highest unprotected UVR exposure occurred during outdoor games (5 of 8 activities exceeding 200 J/m2 were in this category). Taken together, these findings confirm the link between outdoor MVPA and unprotected UVR exposure, and suggest outdoor games (e.g., golf, tennis) can be a particularly strong source of UVR exposure, contributing to skin cancer risk. These results highlight the need for interventions to promote sun protection during outdoor MVPA, including among high-risk populations and those that are less likely to use sun protection (e.g., young adults).