Thanks to the increased use of creams and T-shirts, today's children are better protected from the harmful effects of the sun's rays.
In fact, in 15 years, a -4.4% of sunburn is recorded, a decrease useful for reducing the incidence of skin cancers in the new generations.
This is highlighted by a study by the Italian Melanoma Intergroup (IMI) released in view of the World Cancer Day, which is celebrated on February 4.
The study, published in the journal Medicine, compares the data of the "Il Sole per Amico" awareness campaign with those of the "SoleSi-SoleNo" project, carried out respectively in 2015 and 2001 in primary schools with questionnaires addressed to parents and teachers.
Although almost one in four children (23.3%) suffers intense exposure especially to the sea (87.7% of the sample), the prevalence of sunburn has dropped by 4.4% in the last 15 years.
At the same time, the use of sun creams increased by 14.7% (from 71.1% to 85.8%) and the use of sunscreen by 11.1% (from 19.7% to 28.8%). shirt every time you are in the sun.
It is thanks to these strategies that, after increasing for many years, the rates of melanoma in Italy have stabilized among those born after 1975 and, for the very last few generations, have begun to decline.
"The repeated prevention campaigns work. Not only is the sun increasingly friendly to the skin of Italian children, but the incidence of melanomas among the under forties is also decreasing.
But let's not let our guard down with Covid ", explains Ignazio Stanganelli, IMI president who warns against letting our guard down during the Covid pandemic." The missed visits only in the first quarter of the pandemic - he says - made us go back to the numbers in the 1980s, when early diagnosis barely intercepted 65% of cases against an average of almost 90% in the pre-Coronavirus period ". (ANSA).
