Changing patterns of sun protection between the first and second summers for very young children.

Objectives: To determine if an intensive intervention directed to mothers of newborns would increase levels of sun protection practice and lower rates of sunburning for their children; and to examine changes in sun protection practices and burning rates experienced between the first and second summers of life.

Design: Randomized study.

Setting And Participants: Mothers of infants residing in the coastal town of Falmouth, Mass.

Sun protection policies and environmental features in US elementary schools.

Objective: To assess current sun protection policies and the receptiveness to new policies at elementary schools in the United States.

Design: A cross-sectional telephone survey.

Setting: General educational community.

Sun protection practices in preadolescents and adolescents: a school-based survey of almost 25,000 Connecticut schoolchildren.

Sun protection practices in children and adolescents fall well below national recommendations. We present the results of a survey of sun protection use and other health-related behaviors in a sample of Connecticut Caucasian students aged 9 through 18 years (N = 24,645). Our objectives were to estimate the prevalence of sun protection use and to evaluate the relationship between sun protection use and health-risk behaviors and attitudes about appearance.

Cancer skills laboratories for medical students: a promising approach for cancer education.

Background: Most medical students graduate without the skills necessary to assist patients in cancer control. To address this problem, the authors developed a cancer skills laboratory for second-year medical students.

Methods: The skills laboratory consists of two hours of training, with 15 minutes allotted per station (six to eight students assigned per station).