Showing a woman sun-damaged pictures of her face promotes healthy behaviors

Despite growing knowledge of the sun's negative impact on skin health, safe behaviors continue to be difficult to encourage. Researchers from the University of Surrey (U.K.) have conducted a study on a new method of getting young women to protect their skin from a major cause of skin cancer.

The study compared using personalized images of the women’s faces that had been sun aged to text messages containing information about the dangers of the sun. Results showed that women who were shown the visual images of their own aged faces took two times more free sun screen samples, had decreased belief in the skin's ability to heal and took three times more skin cancer informational leaflets than those who simply received text messages.

"Malignant melanoma is on the increase yet young women often don't protect themselves by using sun screen," said Jane Ogden, one of the study's authors and a professor in health psychology at the University of Surrey. "Our study explored the best way of framing messages to change their attitudes and promote healthier behavior. The results showed that appearance based messages that used imagery to emphasize sun ageing were the most effective. This sun ageing technology could be used more widely to increase sun screen uptake by young women."