Centro Studi GISED
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The Sun as a Friend
What we do
Excessive exposure to sunlight is a risk factor in the development of melanoma and skin cancer (basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma).
"The Sun as a Friend" project gets this idea by the previous SoleSi-SoleNo project, coordinated by Centro Studi Gised in collaboration with Mario Negri Institute in Milan, ended in 2004. This project was a randomised trial assessing the impact of an intensive educational intervention promoting sun protection on preventing sunburns in children. The study involved 122 elementary schools and 11,230 children. At the end of follow-up (one year) no significant effect of the educational interevention was documented.
In 2015, IMI (Italian Melanoma Intergroup) launched a national information and awareness campaign on several medias and using internet. A component of the educational intervention involved elementary schools in in 22 Italian cities.
Centro Studi GISED coordinated the data collection before and after the intervention to assess the impact of the campaign on improving sun protective habits. Collected data were also compared with those obtained in the SoleSi SoleNo project.
Results
Analysis of the results showed that 12,188 questionnaires were completed at the start of the study, and a total of 7,280 (59.7%) were completed at the end of the educational intervention. No significant changes were observed in the behavior of children, after the intervention, while there was a significant reduction in the prevalence of recent and total burns by comparing the data obtained with identical questionnaires, used in the same areas, in the previous project "Sole Si Sole No "from 2001.
The results of the study were collected in an article published in the journal Medicine:
Stanganelli I, Naldi L, Cazzaniga S, et al. Sunburn-related variables, secular trends of improved sun protection and short-term impact on sun attitude behavior in Italian primary schoolchildren: Analysis of the educational campaign "Il Sole Amico" ("The sun as a friend"). Medicine (Baltimore). 2020; 99: e18078.
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