According to a new California study, non-Hispanic white teens and women coming from affluent neighborhoods appeared to be nearly six times more likely to be diagnosed with melanoma -- the most deadly form of skin cancer -- than teenagers and women living in the poorest neighborhoods.
The researchers noted that as per their results, that the socioeconomic status of their subjects had a bigger impact on melanoma risk than actual UV exposure.
“That was a surprise to us,” says study co-researcher Christina A. Clarke, PhD, MPH, of Stanford University and the Cancer Prevention Institute of California. “We thought UV radiation exposure would be a more important predictor of melanoma risk than socioeconomic status, but that is not what we found.”
Among teenage and grown white females, the rates of melanoma have more than doubled over the last three decades. Further, the rates steadily continue to rise as shown by increases over the course of the last few years.
“California is a sunny state, but we found that risk was not just related to living in a sunny area,” she says. “Women living in affluent, sunny areas may have different cultural norms or they may have more time to tan.”
In order to come to their conclusions, 3,800 white females between the ages of 15 and 39 who came down with melanoma between 1988 and 1992, and 1998 and 2002 were included in the study. Women who came from the affluent neighborhoods which had the highest UV radiation levels were 70 percent likelier to get the skin cancer than those who came from the poorest.
This study which appear in the July issue of Archives of Dermatology.
