Cancer Council WA’s SunSmart campaign could save nearly 1000 lives over next 20 years, study reveals

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******* Council WA’s SunSmart campaign could save nearly 1000 lives over next 20 years, study reveals

******* Council WA’s SunSmart program is saving lives as well as money, according to a new study.

Published in Health Promotion International, the research has revealed the SunSmart program is expected to prevent 300,000 skin cancers, save a 1000 lives, and return $8.70 to the public purse for every dollar spent on the campaign over the next 20 years.

The study also found the last 20 years of the SunSmart program was expected to save $650 million in healthcare costs as a result of 13,000 melanomas being avoided.

******* Council WA research director Melissa Ledger said this was a chance to celebrate 20 years of success for WA’s SunSmart program.

“This program has really significant value in terms of healthcare costs that we are preventing so many skin cancers including melanomas but also the societal cost,” she said.

“People are not going to get the same number of skin cancers that they may have otherwise got because they’ve been exposed to the SunSmart program.”

Therapies for advanced stage melanoma costs around $100,000 per patient.

Camera IconCancer Council spokesperson Melissa Ledger Credit: 7NEWS/supplied

Ms Ledger said continuing investment into the SunSmart program was critical for the State’s health system.

“It really does show that prevention and public health campaigns have an enormous role to play in reducing healthcare costs and creating a sustainable health system that we can avoid people going to hospital and needing costly treatment by preventing that over exposure to UV,” she said.

“What we want to see now is a strategy that addresses a lot of the target audiences that we don’t currently work closely enough with.

“I think we’ve still got some gains to be made and that’s for people like secondary school students because we know skin ******* risk increases the more you’re exposed to UV radiation before the age of 18.”

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