Photo Credit: Shade Sails LLC
While you provide secure playground equipment, safe ground-covering for spraygrounds and backstops at ball fields, are you protecting patrons from harmful UV radiation? The areas noted above are usually in full sun with little chance of shade. And, since most outdoor activities fall during the mid-point of the day when UV rays are at their strongest and do the most damage, shade is crucial to protecting skin.
Martin Weinstock, Director of Dermatoepidemiology at Brown University and Chair of the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) Skin Cancer Advisory Board, states in Shade Planning for America's Schools, “The vast bulk of skin cancers in the U.S. are due to excessive skin exposure to UV radiation from the sun, so sun protection is the key to preventing the disease.”
Need proof? The incidence rates for melanoma have been increasing for at least 30 years. According to the American Skin Cancer Society’s (ASCS) Web site, most of the 2 million cases of non-melanoma skin cancer diagnosed yearly in the United States are considered to be sun-related. A recent study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that people with a history of non-melanoma skin cancer were at an increased risk of later developing other cancers.