When I was younger my aunt used to always scold me about wearing sunscreen and protective gear when playing outside for extended periods of time. Because I was young, silly and didn’t have a fair complexion I never bothered to listen, until now. Just the other day I found myself scolding my father for not wearing any sunscreen on his long afternoon walks. Even though African-Americans may not burn as easily as fair skinned persons, everyone still needs to be protected from the sun’s harmful rays.
In fact, there has been an increased amount of chatter about the growing number of African-Americans, Latinos and Asians coming down with melanoma. Known as the most dangerous of skin cancers, melanoma is less likely to occur in darker skin persons, but becomes extremely dangerous and deadlier as it could go undetected for sometime, according to this FOX News piece. I’m not one to toss around statistics to scare folks too often either, but the numbers are a tale-tell sign of the amount of people getting melanoma. From the FOX news piece they also state that one in five Americans will get a skin cancer diagnosis in their lifetime. The figure becomes one in three for Caucasians in the U.S., as noted by the Skin Cancer Foundation. I couldn’t dig up any hardcore, set-in-stone numbers on the amount of dark-skinned melanoma cases, but it’s out there.
So be aware, informed and wear the appropriate sun protection. It’s easy!
Author by Adrienne Wilson
