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Increasing Skin Cancer Prevention in Young Adults: the Cumulative Impact of Personalized UV Photography and MC1R Genetic Testing

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Abstract

Skin cancer has become increasingly common among young adults; however, this population does not consistently adhere to recommended methods for preventing the disease. Interventions in college settings have relied on appearance-focused appeals and have not been able to examine the cumulative effect of multiple behavior change and skin cancer risk communication strategies. The goal of the current study was to examine the unique and combined impacts of personalized ultraviolet (UV) radiation photographs, genetic testing for skin cancer risk, and general skin cancer prevention education. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (1) skin cancer prevention education, (2) education + UV photo, (3) education + genetic testing, and (4) education + UV photo + genetic testing. Self-reported sun protection, tanning, and sunburn were assessed at baseline, immediately post-intervention, and 1 month post-intervention. The findings indicated benefits of the interventions to skin cancer prevention behaviors in the overall sample; however, the combined (UV photo + genetic testing) intervention had the most consistent positive effects on behaviors. Intervention effects were distinct across seasons. These results suggest that interventions containing multiple skin cancer risk communication strategies hold promise in benefitting health-promoting behavior changes in an at-risk, young adult population.

Trial Registration Number: NCT03979872; Registered 6/5/2019.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the following individuals who assisted with data collection and data processing: Kade Kofford, Kadyn Kimball, Manusheela Pokharel, Elizabeth A. Giorgi, Sean Upshaw, Julia Berger, Katy Nottingham, Kevin K. John.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by Dave Overholt, the Utah Department of Health Comprehensive Cancer Control Program (Centers for Disease Control grant number 1NU58DP006321), the National Cancer Institute (NCI, K07CA196985; Y.P.W.), the Innovators Award from NCI (3DP2EB022360-01S1, J.D.J.), the Department of Dermatology (Y.P.W., D.G.) and the Huntsman Cancer Foundation (D.G.). This work was also supported by the Office of Communications, Genetic Counseling Shared Resource, and Cancer Biostatistics Shared Resource (P30CA042014). J.L.H. and J.G.H. were supported by NCI P30 CA008748; J.G.H. was supported by ACS MRSG-16-020-01-CPPB. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Dermatology, University of Utah Health Sciences Center, 30 North 1900 East, 4A330-Salt Lake City, UT, 84132, USA

    Yelena P. Wu & Douglas Grossman

  2. Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, 2000 Circle of Hope Drive, Rm LL376, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    Yelena P. Wu, Kimberly A. Kaphingst, Jakob D. Jensen, Wendy Kohlmann, Bridget G. Parsons, Xuechen Wang, Benjamin Haaland, Ali P. Wankier & Douglas Grossman

  3. Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Ave, New York, NY, 10065, USA

    Jada G. Hamilton & Jennifer L. Hay

  4. Department of Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Ave, New York, NY, 10065, USA

    Jada G. Hamilton

  5. Department of Communication, University of Utah, 255 Central Campus Drive, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    Kimberly A. Kaphingst, Jakob D. Jensen & Helen M. Lillie

  6. Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Utah, 295 Chipeta Way, Williams Building Room 1N410, Salt Lake City, UT, 84108, USA

    Xuechen Wang & Benjamin Haaland

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  1. Yelena P. Wu
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Contributions

Yelena P. Wu: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing –original draft, Writing –review & editing. Jada G. Hamilton: Conceptualization, investigation, methodology, Writing –review & editing. Kimberly A. Kaphingst: Conceptualization, investigation, methodology, Writing –review & editing. Jakob D. Jensen: Data curation, formal analysis, methodology, Writing –review & editing. Wendy Kohlmann: Resources, Writing –review & editing. Bridget G. Parsons: Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing –review & editing. Helen M. Lillie: Data curation. Xuechen Wang: Data curation, formal analysis, Writing –original draft. Benjamin Haaland: Data curation, formal analysis, methodology, Writing –review & editing. Ali P. Wankier: Formal analysis, writing –review & editing. Douglas Grossman: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing –review & editing. Jennifer L. Hay: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing –original draft, Writing –review & editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yelena P. Wu.

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Ethics Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Utah [IRB_00116807].

Consent to Participate/Consent to Publish

Informed consent for study participation and publishing of their data was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

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Wu, Y.P., Hamilton, J.G., Kaphingst, K.A. et al. Increasing Skin Cancer Prevention in Young Adults: the Cumulative Impact of Personalized UV Photography and MC1R Genetic Testing. J Canc Educ 38, 1059–1065 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-022-02232-1

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