Don't Let the Sun Get Under Your Skin

 

Motivating young people to protect their skin

A new youth education campaign in New Zealand

The Health Sponsorship Council (HSC), a Crown Entity who runs the SunSmart – Slip, Slop, Slap and Wrap – programme, is launching a new campaign that aims to motivate adolescents to use sun protection, and hence reduce their risk of skin cancer.  This new focus has been recommended by the New Zealand Skin Cancer Steering Committee, which identified adolescents as an at-risk group.  

The youth campaign is called Don’t Let the Sun Get Under Your Skin and uses UV (ultraviolet) photos to illustrate the skin damage that can be caused by excess UV exposure from the sun.  The original campaign was developed by the Centre for Health Initiatives (CHI), University of Wollongong, under an Australian Research Council Linkage project.

CHI’s and other international research shows that young people are more likely to be motivated by concerns about their appearance, rather than risk of skin cancer.  So the approach of the campaign is to show the effect too much sun can have on the skin, which may help motivate young people to protect their skin for life.    

The creatives for this campaign as well as a banner advert that can be placed on your website or Facebook page, is available on the SunSmart website. You can also view the banner advert on surf.co.nz and your IT people can help you load it onto your website.

For more information, contact Laurianne Reinsborough, SunSmart Manager at HSC: laurianne@hsc.org.nz or www.facebook.com/underyourskinNZ