SPOT

The council continued its Skin Cancer Reduction: Intervention Plan For Tomorrow (SCRIPT) efforts throughout 2011 while laying the groundwork for rebranding the program to SPOT Skin Cancer™ in 2012. This new public education campaign will help us to amplify our efforts to educate the public about the importance of skin cancer prevention and detection.

We continued our successful Play Sun Smart™ collaboration with Major League Baseball in 2011, and the Shade Structure Program provided grants to build shade structures to more than 30 organizations. The Academy also commissioned a study on tanning behaviors among young Caucasian women. The study results suggest that our efforts to educate the public and change the behavior of young women are vital. We found that 32 percent of respondents had used a tanning bed in the previous year, and that 25 percent of those respondents used a tanning bed on at least a weekly basis. A staggering 81 percent reported that they had tanned outdoors either occasionally or frequently in the year previous. Young women 18-22 years old were found twice as likely to have used a tanning bed compared to those in the 14-17 age range.

As SCRIPT is rebranded to SPOT in 2012, the council looks forward to enhancing the Academy’s commitment to providing public education about the dangers of skin cancer and sponsoring programs that directly address the issue.