It’s important, too, to take other sun protective measures, such as covering up with clothing and a wide-brimmed hat, seeking shade, and whenever possible, avoiding the sun between 10 a.m. “Skin discoloration is among the most common complaints in patients with brown skin, and regular use of sunscreen is a critical component of the treatment regimen.” The American Academy of Dermatology recommends that everyone use a broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher every day. “The bulk of the benefit to wearing sunscreen in patients with brown skin is that it helps minimize skin discoloration and premature wrinkling,” says Crystal Aguh, MD, director of the Ethnic Skin Program at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. But even if you don’t burn and aren’t worried about skin cancer, sunscreen is the key to keeping skin healthy. People who have darker skin-and the slight protection that extra melanin provides-might be tempted to skimp. In a 2022 American Academy of Dermatology survey of more than 1,000 adults, two-thirds of respondents claim that they often forget to reapply sunscreen. “Why are there such drastic differences between mortality rates even though skin cancer is much less common in Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians vs. “I think perhaps the most important conversation to have around skin cancer is the disparities that exist within it,” says Jenna Lester, MD, director of the Skin of Color Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco. The outcome is that skin cancer can be harder to treat and, in the case of melanoma, be more deadly in nonwhites. “Even doctors often don’t think about skin cancer when they’re treating people of color,” Downie says. That’s partly because of a lack of awareness about the risks and because skin cancer can look much different and be found in different places on the body (such as the palms and soles of the feet). Skin cancer is often diagnosed at a later stage in people of color. And the rates of melanoma, a potentially fatal type of skin cancer, are still 1 in 167 for Hispanics and 1 in 1,000 for non-Hispanic Blacks, according to the American Cancer Society. Among Asian women in the study, those who got the most sun over their lifetime had a risk that was about 4.5 times greater. For example, in a study published in the journal Cancer Causes & Control, Asian men who had the most sun exposure in childhood had a risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma (a type of skin cancer than isn’t usually fatal but can be disfiguring) that was about three times greater than those who got the least sun exposure. Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics do have a significantly lower incidence of skin cancer compared with white people.
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