HHS HealthBeat (April 28, 2009)

Doing by learning

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Nobody wants a sunburn, and there are ways to avoid them – if you learn how and then do them.

Emory University researcher Dawn Hall found this in data on the Pool Cool program, a sun safety education training for use at outdoor swimming pools.  

Lifeguards in the Pool Cool program teach children about sun safety with their regular swimming lessons.  But Hall says the lifeguards also benefited from teaching the Pool Cool lessons:

[Dawn Hall speaks] "The odds of reporting two or more sunburns were one and one half times greater for individuals who reported that they had not taught the Pool Cool sun safety lessons."

Healthy sun protection habits include wearing sunscreen, shirts with sleeves, hats, and sunglasses, and staying in the shade.

The study in Archives of Dermatology was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: April, 30 2009