Guidelines updated to take account of diverse skin types
Australia's sun safety guidelines have been updated to take account of diverse skin types. The change is based on growing evidence about the health importance of sun exposure and genetic differences in the population.
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00:00 For people with very dark skin tones, they're at very low risk of skin cancer but higher
00:07 risk of vitamin D deficiency.
00:09 So for those people, we would actually be advocating spending some time outdoors and
00:15 that routine sun protection is not required.
00:18 You can get vitamin D from a supplement and that's part of the reason that we've released
00:21 this new position statement.
00:23 That we know that sun exposure actually has benefits in addition to producing vitamin
00:28 D.
00:29 So for people who are at very high risk of getting a skin cancer, then it's probably
00:33 better to accept that we may not get all the benefits of sun exposure and take a vitamin
00:37 D supplement.
00:39 But for everybody else, getting enough sun exposure to maintain vitamin D is also a good
00:45 way of getting the other benefits of the sun.
00:47 For everybody other than people with deeply pigmented skin, we would encourage people
00:52 to err on the side of caution and for that really high risk group, they should be routinely
00:57 covered with clothing when outdoors.
00:59 Sun is not enough.
01:00 We should be wearing clothing and hats and seeking shade at all times.
01:04 But for people who are at somewhat lower risk, morning sunscreen application is really important
01:10 on all days when the UV index is forecast to get to three.
01:13 But spending a short amount of time and I would emphasise short, outside to maintain
01:19 vitamin D levels and covering up beyond that time is actually a reasonable strategy to
01:24 adopt.
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