New program helps high-risk children improve sun protection behaviors

Children of parents who have melanoma, a serious type of skin cancer that starts in the cells that make pigment, have twice the lifetime risk of developing the disease themselves. A researcher from Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah (the U) has developed a successful program to teach melanoma patients and their children behaviors that will help prevent the onset of melanoma later in life.

Yelena Wu, PhD, investigator at Huntsman Cancer Institute and professor of dermatology at the U, has found that her FLARE program-short for Family, Lifestyles, Actions, and Risk Education-improved sun-protective behaviors among these at-risk children.

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