Sun safety this summer: from UV apps to sun protection tips that actually work

Posted by Angela Rodrigues, Associate Professor in Psychology, Northumbria University and co-lead of the Fuse Behaviour Change Cluster

The UK has already seen unusually hot weather this year, with temperatures high enough to make sun safety a live issue well before many people have packed for their summer holidays.

For many of us, the instinctive response to good weather is to get outside while it lasts. But sudden bursts of hot, bright weather are also a reminder that sun protection needs to start before we are already on the beach.

UV exposure is not only a problem on foreign holidays or during peak summer. In the UK, UV levels can reach 3 or above from as early as April – this is the point at which many public health bodies advise taking sun protection seriously, especially for people who burn easily.

Abroad, particularly in southern Europe or long-haul destinations, levels commonly reach 8, 9 or 10 in summer. That is a significant jump from what most people living in the UK are used to at home, and one reason holidays are often when their skin is most at risk.

My research with holidaymakers suggests that people want to manage sun exposure better – especially when they are given clear, location-specific information about UV levels, plus practical reminders about when to protect themselves.

Staying safe in the sun works best as a combination of habits: seeking shade, wearing a hat, covering up, limiting time in strong midday sun, and using sunscreen properly.

Not just sunscreen

One of the most effective things you can do is seek shade during the middle of the day, when UV levels are at their highest – typically 11am-3pm in the UK and during similar peak hours abroad. A wide-brimmed hat, a long-sleeved layer for the hottest part of the day, and sunglasses that offer UV protection all add meaningful protection that sunscreen alone cannot provide.

Planning ahead makes this much easier. Before you head out, check the UV index for your destination. Most weather apps now include this. Then plan the highest-exposure parts of your day around it.

Think of sun protection as part of your morning routine: apply sunscreen before leaving the house, just as you would brush your teeth, and pack a hat, sunglasses and sunscreen in your day bag. It is also worth taking a light cover-up such as a T-shirt, kaftan or sarong to protect your shoulders and chest.

When you stop for lunch, that is your natural cue to reapply sunscreen. Many people on holiday take a midday break anyway. A shaded lunch, and even a short siesta during peak UV hours, is not just a pleasant holiday habit. It is good sun safety.

By the time you head back out later in the afternoon, you’ll have rested, cooled down and reapplied sunscreen, and you are making better use of the lower-UV part of the day.

Simple “if-then” plans can help too. If the UV index is forecast to be 3 or above, then I will cover up and seek shade. If I am heading to the beach, then I will reapply sunscreen as soon as I arrive and again after swimming.

One thing our research consistently shows is that most people underestimate how quickly their skin can burn, particularly in strong sun. Rather than trying to calculate a safe window, treat the UV index as your guide. If it is 3 or above, cover up and seek shade during the strongest part of the day.

Sunscreen works best when applied generously and reapplied regularly, but guidance on how much to use can feel vague. Our research suggests a helpful rule of thumb: for your face, neck and ears, aim for around a teaspoon’s worth. For a full body application, you need considerably more than most people use, roughly the equivalent of a golf ball.

Applying more than you think you need, and reapplying every two hours when you are outdoors, makes a real difference to the protection your skin gets. You should also reapply after swimming, sweating or towelling off, even if the product is labelled water resistant.

Apps are useful – if they change what you do

Studies of sun protection apps suggest these digital tools can help when they give people specific, usable information rather than vague warnings. In my research into holidaymakers’ views of these apps, participants valued UV index information and location-based reminders because these helped them to plan their day, rather than simply reacting once already in strong sun.

Personalised guidance can make sun protection feel less like guesswork by taking account of your skin type, where you are and how strong the UV is at that moment.

If you use a sun protection app, look for one that provides real-time, location-specific UV forecasting and concrete, practical advice, rather than general reminders. Even a basic UV index tracker can help you decide when to cover up, when to seek shade and when UV levels are lower.

The SunSmart Global UV app (supported by the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the UN Environment Programme and the International Labour Organization) shows what this can look like. It gives users location-specific UV information and indicates when sun protection is needed.

That is the kind of practical guidance holidaymakers in my research said they wanted: advice that helps them make decisions in the moment, not just general messages about staying safe in the sun.

Enjoy the good weather

Sun protection does not mean staying indoors. It means making the sun easier to enjoy: checking the UV index, packing a hat and sunscreen, seeking shade when UV is strongest, and reapplying before your skin reminds you.

Skin cancer is largely preventable, and small habits add up. The aim is to make sun protection part of the day – not an afterthought once you are already hot, tired and turning pink.



Image: Photo by Kampus Production from Pexels

Adapted with thanks to The Conversation

This time the hare might win: dark kitchens and the regulatory race

Posted by Helen Moore, Associate Professor (Research) & Fuse Associate, Teesside University 

Do you remember the fable of the tortoise and the hare? The one where the overconfident hare sprints ahead, but takes a nap, and lets the slow but steady tortoise win the race? Well, in today’s digital economy, that story’s getting a reboot, but this time, the hare isn’t napping.

In the world of food delivery and online ordering, the hare (the digital entrepreneurs) is wide awake and developing food purchasing opportunities at an incredible speed. Online delivery outlets, often functioning as dark kitchens, are agile, tech-savvy, and unburdened by the red tape of traditional business models. They’re using popular, well-known apps to reach huge numbers of people, launching new brands overnight, flooding menus with similar, but subtly different options and delivering meals faster than regulators can say “planning permission.” Low overheads, high levels of flexibility and choice have meant that rates of online food ordering are increasing, with the covid-19 pandemic accelerating this phenomenon.

Meanwhile, the tortoise (well-meaning but less agile local and national government) is still trying to understand the race in which it has been entered. Regulators are struggling to keep pace with a food industry that’s evolving in real time while the professionals working in local authorities hit ‘speed bumps’ which include outdated planning laws and limited evidence. For example, there is no clear use classification for dark kitchens, and some councils treat them as “industrial”, others as “sui generis” (unique), and there is inconsistent enforcement between local authorities. While some local authorities have implemented restrictions on takeaways opening close to schools, online food ordering apps mean that food can be delivered from places outside of the restricted areas. In addition, due to limitations with the recording of food outlet data, policymakers also find it hard to track spread or assess impact of dark kitchens which contribute significantly to this industry.

While innovation races ahead, regulation is not keeping pace, raising questions about public health, urban planning, and fairness. This isn’t just a story of speed, it’s also a story of systems, and unless the tortoise finds ways to modernise the traditional policy cycles to become proactive rather than reactive, and to reduce potential loopholes, the hare might just win this one, particularly as consumers like convenience and variety, which online ordering offers in abundance.

So, what can be done?

National and local authorities need to rethink how they engage with fast-moving digital industries - not to stifle innovation, but to ensure it serves the public good. We need clear national guidance on planning classifications, and health-focused planning laws that include digital-only food outlets. It isn’t all bad news though, there are some signs of progress with local authorities beginning to enforce planning permission requirements and with funded research projects examining various aspects of dark kitchens.

Free online training

To support local authorities and communities in using the planning system to promote healthier diets and reduce obesity, we have launched a new, free e-learning course called Planning for a Healthier Food Environment. The course was developed through a collaborative effort between Fuse (the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health), academic experts from Teesside University and Newcastle University, and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID).

This one-hour online Fuse Research Event, held on 23 September, introduced the wider policy and planning context for the course, provided insights into its cross-disciplinary development, and outlined how the resource can be applied in practice to support healthier, more equitable environments.

Photo by Roman on Unsplash

Going hybrid: The best of both worlds?

Posted by Helen Moore, Associate Professor (Research), Teesside University

Since 2012 my ability to attend in-person and participate in seminars, conferences and workshops has been significantly reduced. This was partially due to a change in my mobility while I was pregnant with twins twice (!) (2012, 2015), and then after my pregnancies, due to the challenges of arranging childcare for four small children. It has become easier as they have got older, but after my second maternity leave, I returned to work but remained the primary carer for four children under the age of four as their father (my husband), was (and still is) a Merchant Navy captain, which involves working away for half of every year.

Make an enquiry about getting professional technical help as soon as you conceive the idea
 – don’t assume it will be prohibitively expensive

During this time, I had always felt very grateful to any event organiser who took the time to release the slides after their events or, as time progressed and technology moved on, to run an additional online version as this enabled me to participate, albeit in a less than perfect fashion, but I viewed it as certainly being better than nothing. I hadn’t really appreciated how many other people were also often unable to attend events in-person, due to other factors in their lives, but this was brought into sharper focus for me with the Covid-19 pandemic when I started reading, and joining in with, conversations on social media around event accessibility that had never been on my radar.

I’m sure everyone remembers that when lockdowns were imposed, initially events were completely cancelled but as time progressed and it became clear this was not going to be a ‘flash in the pan’, the planning stages of events began to include considerations of how best to run them entirely online, with many people having to rapidly learn and develop skills around using technology to engage with the maximum number of participants possible.

Between January-April 2021, I was part of a team that worked on a project commissioned by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) which looked at the impact of Covid-19 on the hot food takeaway planning regulatory environment in North East England. As the project drew to a close the team thought that this, alongside other work we had been involved in, or were aware of, would make an excellent Fuse Research Event, and my colleague Professor Amelia Lake and I decided we would work together to make it happen.

I was keen to explore the possibilities of having a, in my view, truly hybrid event, where participants could choose to attend in person or via a real time remote video stream, and where presenters could choose to be in the room or present via a MS Teams link. I had previously worked with the team from Teesside University’s Aurora House on other projects, and Amelia had worked with them to create the live stream of her inaugural professorial lecture, so we were confident that they possessed the skills, the technology and the will to ensure this could happen.

It took a lot of organisation to get this to work, and having organised many events pre-Covid, it was definitely more work than if we had decided to run a traditional event with in-person attendance only. I spent significant amounts of time thinking about how we could include the remote audience and presenters in the discussion in the most effective way. The entire event was live streamed on the Fuse YouTube channel, with a technician ensuring that the virtual audience saw a mix of angles and information during the session. We used sli.do to allow the remote audience to submit questions during each presentation, and then one of the organising team asked the questions using the same microphone that was used for questions from the room so everyone could hear.

 

We only had one minor hiccup, in that we used my personal Teams account to allow the external speakers to present, and I forgot to decline meetings that were scheduled to run at the same time – and, of course, the other meeting used the chat function, which meant everyone could read their messages! We managed to get a message to the other meeting and they quickly stopped using the chat function!

As usual, we asked for feedback on the event, and the comments were extremely positive, including the fact it was hybrid, with “Ability to attend online”, mentioned in more than one response.

I would absolutely encourage people to think about making the effort to run hybrid events. it widens your audience and opens up different avenues for discussion – posing a question via an online function is, for most people, less scary than standing up and speaking into a microphone! 

My top tips for running a hybrid event

While I was writing this blog, I thought about what my top five tips would be for anyone considering running a hybrid event in the future:

1. Make an enquiry about getting professional technical help as soon as you conceive the idea – don’t assume it will be prohibitively expensive;
2. Ensure you communicate with the presenters and attendees, before and during the event, about how they can interact and engage during the event;
3. Use interactive apps such as sli.do.
4. Avoid using personal accounts for external events, such as Teams or Zoom (or make sure to decline any other meetings scheduled at the same time!)
5. Always ask for feedback to improve future events.

Children’s exposure to junk food advertising: can the UK hold firm in the face of industry resistance?

Posted by Chris Baker, primary school teacher and distance learning tutor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Growing up in a sweet shop was, as you can imagine, an absolute dream. Who wouldn’t want an entire store of confectionery under their own roof? It was the 1990s and I didn’t realise how lucky I was - living above a newsagent run by my parents. I’d get home from school, give a cursory wave to my mum behind the counter and immediately grab a chocolate bar, or an ice cream. It was the best.

Clearly, it wasn’t a recipe for good health. I was continuously surrounded by the bold and colourful logos, the marketing strategies and the special offers - all designed to hook me into habitual consumption. I paid little attention to the nutritional contents of the things I was snaffling (this was long before front-of-package labelling came along). My physical health (particularly my teeth) paid the price.

Cut to 2020 and I find myself thinking back to that era - before the internet, before screen-time, before social media. I am now a primary school teacher (with experience in public health) committed to promoting children’s health and well-being. I see that the relationship between children and junk food today has not changed all that much. There are still products high in fat, sugar and/or salt that kids crave. And what’s helping them to connect with these products? Digital marketing.

I teach ten and eleven-year-olds in an international school, so the demographic group I am most familiar with is not representative of the UK. However, I believe there are important similarities. Many children of this age now have smartphones and use apps intended for older audiences. Through these apps, they are exposed to new and sophisticated marketing strategies, unheard of by older generations.

Fortunately, there are plans to address this. Last year the UK government proposed a total ban of online marketing for foods high in fat, salt and sugar. Not a restriction, or a tightening of rules: a total ban. The preamble to this consultation suggests that completely reducing exposure to ‘endless prompts’ to eat offers the best way forward. The government’s response to the consultation, with an accompanying plan of action, is due to be published this Spring.

The scope and scale of this proposal are noteworthy. To date, no countries have successfully implemented a complete ban (there are strong restrictions in Chile and French-speaking Canada). Implementation of the government’s proposal would place the UK firmly at the front of the pack, delivering strong policy action with the potential for significant public health benefit.

Unsurprisingly, industries affected by such a ban have been critical of the proposals. In an open letter, a consortium of food companies and advertising agencies called for a rethink. Their arguments are predictable and are representative of a cross-industry playbook, seen repeatedly in recent years across several other industries interested in unhealthy commodities. They claim the proposal is disproportionate. They claim the evidence is lacking in detail. They distance themselves from the issue and play down their role. They demand a meeting with the government to discuss ‘alternative’ (but unspecified) approaches.

A total ban would be an entirely appropriate response in the face of an industry that has altered considerably in recent years. An earlier attempt to merely limit adverts for unhealthy foods in and around children’s tv programming (as well as other non-broadcast media) was found to expose children to no less advertising. Artificial separation of children’s media and adult media is a fallacy, and doesn’t reflect the reality of tv consumption nowadays.

More importantly, this proposal addresses the issue of children’s developing ability to distinguish an advert (and its provenance). Research suggests that over a third of 12-15 year olds are not aware of the financial arrangements behind promotional posts. Astroturfing - the artificially-created “buzz” around a product, designed to look authentic and spontaneous - can be difficult to identify, especially when delivered by a relatable vlogger or influencer, who may not have disclosed endorsement arrangements.

Most schools nowadays (mine included) encourage “digital citizenship”. As a teacher, I am responsible for helping my students navigate the risks and benefits of the internet. Often, I hear children referring to spurious news stories, and am reminded of the sophisticated ways even adults can be tricked into believing something.

Age restrictions for social media platforms, often put forward as a robust mechanism to shield children from inappropriate content, are weak and inconsistently controlled. Parental control settings on popular sites are not widely understood or implemented and the rapid changes in children’s media habits is named as a key driver in the government’s desire to strengthen legislation.

I believe that young people should have the freedom to use television and the internet for enjoyment and education. Exposure to insidious marketing that promotes and profits from the development of unhealthy eating habits should not be a price to pay for this. The UK government has proposed a bold course of action. In the face of strong opposition from industry, they should stay firm with their intentions; the health of future generations stands to benefit.

52 weeks in public health research, part 50

Posted by Mandy Cheetham, Amelia Lake and Mark Welford

It's all food, parties and away days in this week's Fuse blog picture post.  You'd think it was Christmas!

Posted by Amelia Lake: A balance? T'is the season to introduce your offspring to more sugary delights... Or is it a season for some balance! I like the balance option, some treats - both fruity and sugary!

Posted by Mandy Cheetham: A little (delicious) Christmas indulgence at the Health and Social Care Institute away day in Great Ayton, North Yorkshire. Reward for a morning's work including workgroups on software and apps (details below) designed to make our research life richer and easier!

Evernote & OneNote (information management), Inspiration & Prezi (visual mapping and presentational software), handling long documents in Word, and Twitter.

Posted by Mark Welford: Professor Graham Henderson giving a quick speech at his last staff Christmas party before he retires as Vice-Chancellor of Teesside University.  He resisted the urge to play a solo on the double bass temptingly placed behind him!

 

Posted by Amelia Lake: More food photos for the blog. Our traditional in canteen Christmas meal at Durham Queen's Campus in Stockton. With the obligatory whizzing balloons!

 

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A reminder from the Fuse blog group:

Each Thursday of 2014 we’ll try and post around four pictures on the Fuse blog that capture our weeks in public health research, from the awe-inspiring to the everyday and mundane. Given that more of the latter than the former exists in most of our lives, we foresee problems compiling 208 images worth posting on our own. So this is going to have to be a group project. Send an image (or images) with a sentence or two describing what aspect of your week in public health research they sum up and we’ll post them as soon as we can. You don’t have to send four together – we can mix and match images from different people in the same week.

Normal rules apply: images you made yourself are best; if you use someone else’s image please check you’re allowed to first; if anyone’s identifiable in an image, make sure they’re happy for it to be posted; nothing rude; nothing that breaks research confidentiality etc.

Email your posts to m.welford@tees.ac.uk or contact any member of the Fuse blog group.