Students put themselves at risk of sun damage

Almost 80 per cent of secondary school students don’t wear hats or find shade from the sun, a new study finds.

But young men are more likely to wear hats than young women, putting the latter at a higher risk of melanoma skin cancers.

Research leader Ryan Gage said the study gave weight to calls for schools to brush up on sun-safety.

‘‘Our findings suggest that children may be less sun-safe in school grounds than previously believed. Although most schools had a ‘no hat, no play’ policy, few students actually wore hats.’’

The study found that a sun-safety policy may not translate to better sunprotective behaviours among students.

‘‘Additional intervention may therefore be warranted to ensure that children within schools are sun-safe,’’ the report said.

The study found children spent most of their time outside but only 21 per cent of students wore ‘‘protective’’ styles of hats, such as bucket, broadbrim or legionnaire.

But children without school uniforms had almost 12 per cent better total body coverage than their uniformed pupils because they chose to wear long sleeves and pants. Students from schools with uniform hats were more likely to wear them, it said.

The data was collected from 168 children across the Wellington region, aged between 11 and 13, who wore cameras around their necks between September and April. Photos were taken during lunch breaks at eight primary and intermediate schools to capture the extend of ultraviolet exposure every seven seconds.

The two-year long University of Otago study paired the images of 1278 students with data from the National Institute of Weather and Atmospheric Research (Niwa). It found the average ultraviolet exposure was five points above the required sun protection reading of three, putting children ‘‘at risk’’ of sun damage. Students should be given school hats, sun-protective uniforms and effective shade constructed to ensure their protection from sun damage, the study said.

The study didn’t include the use of, or access to sunscreen. New Zealand currently has the highest rate of melanoma skin cancer in the world.

Each year, 500 Kiwis die from skin cancer and another 70,000 are diagnosed with it.