Even in winter Queensland is famous for its blue skies which make it a sun lovers' paradise but also means being sun-smart is just as important now as it is in summer.
Unfortunately Queenslanders are not as sun smart as they should be and to help increase awareness a QUT PhD student is asking all Queenslanders to get involved in pioneering a new method for measuring our sun-related behaviour.
Hundreds of people have signed up already but another 500 are wanted to complete the survey and QUT is particularly keen to attract regional Queenslanders from as far north as Cairns to the Mt Isa in the west and Stanthorpe in the South.
According to the Cancer Council Queensland, more than 136,000 skin cancers are diagnosed in Queensland each year - including around 3,400 melanomas and 133,000 non-melanoma skin cancers.
"Queensland leads Australia when it comes to incidences of both basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma," said Ngadiman Djaja working within the QUT-based National Health and Medical Research Council Centre for Research Excellence in Sun and Health.
"Because there are so many, these cancers are the most expensive to treat, costing the Australian economy an estimated $703 million by the end of this year."
Mr Djaja is calling on Queenslanders over the age of 18 to complete his new Sun Exposure and Sun Protection Behaviours Survey which aims to provide a better measure of sun protection and sun exposure habits than surveys used in earlier studies. The study will compare the performance of the new survey to the performance of an old survey.
"The answers to my survey will be used to validate a new method of measuring sun protection and sun exposure habits that are associated with skin cancer risk," he said.
"A critical issue is that there is currently no gold standard for measuring sun exposure or sun protection behaviours. Every researcher has simply created their own survey.
"Most old survey methods only focus on a few key aspects of sun exposure or sun protection and are not comprehensive. Old surveys were also developed using classical psychometrics approaches which have some limitationsovercome by modern psychometrics."
The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete and includes questions on sun exposure habits, skin cancer history, solarium use, occupation, lifestyle, sunscreen application and ancestry.
Visit www.sunaus.org to participate in the Sun Exposure and Sun Protection Behaviours Survey which will be live until end of September2015.
Media contact:
Amanda Weaver, QUT Media, 07 3138 9449, amanda.weaver@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901, media@qut.edu.au
