Olsen discusses how clinicians can help prevent skin cancer.1 Most of the damaging effect of sun exposure in more temperate countries such as the UK is from risky behaviours—namely, sunbathing and seeking a tan. Public misunderstanding of what constitutes healthy sun exposure is endemic across all age groups.Unfortunately, sunscreen can seem to be a panacea to people who choose to sunbathe on holiday. This is akin to putting filters on cigarettes. It may mitigate some of the risk but distracts from the harder task of kicking the habit altogether. The false sense of safety may promote more indulgence in the risky behaviour.2At the same time, around 12% of white people, a third of black people, and half of Asian people in the UK have vitamin D deficiencies.3 This points to a fundamental dysfunction in culture: people getting inadequate aliquots of daily healthy light exposure from being indoors most of the…
