Sunlight exposure: risks and benefits – a new NICE guideline for the UK

February 9, 2016

Overview

This UK guideline covers how to communicate the risks and benefits of natural sunlight exposure (specifically, the ultraviolet rays UVA and UVB) to help people understand why they may need to modify their behaviour to reduce their risk of skin cancer and vitamin D deficiency.

Recommendations

This guideline includes recommendations on:

• at-risk groups
• communicating consistent balanced messages (message content)
• mass media campaigns to raise awareness of the risks and benefits
• local strategies to raise awareness among at-risk groups

The guideline also includes supporting information for practitioners

Who is it for?

Commissioners, managers and practitioners with public health or social care as part of their remit working within the NHS, local authorities and the wider public, private, voluntary and community sectors

Guideline development process

How we develop NICE guidelines

This guideline replaces recommendations 1–5 in skin cancer prevention NICE guideline PH32 (2011). The guideline should be read together with NICE’s guideline on vitamin D: increasing supplement use among at-risk groups and any recommendations made by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) on vitamin D.

Source:
Sunlight exposure: risks and benefits NICE guideline Published: 9 February 2016
http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng34/resources/sun...