Oral Presentation Skin Cancer 2024

The development of the Go Sun Smart at Work SmartBot: A virtual guide for occupational sun safety implementation  (#41)

Mary K Buller 1 , Barbara Walkosz 1 , David Buller 1 , Julia Berteletti 1 , Brandon Herbeck 1 , Irene Adjei 1 , Robert Martin 2 , Steven Fullmer 1
  1. Klein Buendel, Inc., GOLDEN, COLORADO, United States
  2. Lightbender Creative, Moab, Utah, United States

Outdoor workers are exposed to an extreme amount of solar ultraviolet radiation, making them highly vulnerable to skin cancer and heat illness. Increasing disparities in skin cancer survival and heat mortality in Black and Hispanic Americans, who are overrepresented in the outdoor workforce in the U.S., highlight the need for inclusive and comprehensive sun safety education. Informed by systematic literature reviews and interviews with employees and managers, Go Sun Smart at Work (GSSW), an evidence-based skin cancer prevention program, was adapted to include enhanced messaging for people of color and to combine skin cancer and heat illness prevention. An online format was used, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to make sun safety implementation accessible, flexible, and simple for employers. A custom intelligent system, the SmartBot, guides employers (e.g., safety managers) through three program components: policy, training, and implementation. It asks users questions about their organization and uses an enhanced version of the GravityForms survey engine to identify and tailor sun safety resources based on their responses. As users progress through the SmartBot, they collect resources from a library of sun safety content (Resource Hub). Built with the WordPress Content Management System, the Resource Hub includes informational videos, posters, fact sheets, a 45-minute training with quizzes, and sample safety policies. Users can return to their Resource Hub to retrieve resources or quickly search and filter all the resources in the system. The SmartBot’s impact on employee sun protection will be tested with 20 employers in a randomized field trial.