Our Sun Awareness Week campaign goes out to teach the public using a two-pronged approach, providing advice on prevention as well as early detection. By teaching prevention, we aim to raise awareness of the dangers of burning and excessive tanning, and to discourage people from using sunbeds. We also teach people how to spot the signs of skin cancer to increase the number of people who get diagnosed early. We have also successfully campaigned for legislative action to improve the regulation of sunbeds, and this is something we will continue to do.

In previous years we have had plenty of interesting research, surveys, and events come out during Sun Awareness Week.

We have shared the most up-to-date skin cancer data for the UK (2022), which showed that non-melanoma skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the UK. More recently, a study looking at mortality rates of different skin cancers (2024) told us that non-melanoma skin cancer deaths are on track to overtake melanoma deaths in England and Scotland for the first time.

As recently as 2023, we published the results of a nation-wide survey that looked into the sunbathing habits of Brits, and found that as many as 40% of people had experienced at least one sunburn during the heatwave-heavy summer of 2022.

Five years earlier, in 2017 we published a survey that showed that more than one in three (35%) of people were burning every year in the UK, with a further 46% burning while abroad.

In other years we’ve hosted events such as an educational mole check at Shepherds Bush Westfield Shopping centre, or 2014’s event where Team GB’s Louis Smith and Greg Rutherford became Sun Awareness Week lifeguards for photo opportunity sun protection postcards.

Keep an eye on our social media channels for updates!