COLUMBUS, Ohio — One in Five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime. 

What You Need To Know

  • About 9500 Americans get diagnosed with melanoma daily

  • Ohio averaged about 25 melanoma cases per every 100,000 people from 2016 to 2020

  • The best way to protect yourself is wearing sunscreen, utilizing sun protective clothing and getting checked by a dermatologist regularly 

The most recent melanoma study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Cancer Institute shows that from 2016 to 2020, Ohio averaged 25.3 melanoma cases per 100,000 people, while the national average sat around 22.5 cases per 100,000 people.

Dr. Jennifer Lucas with Cleveland Clinic speculates that there are various contributors to this increase. 

Because of Ohio’s fickle weather, and cold winters, sunshine is often intermittent. This leads to many only protecting themselves intermittently, but Lucas said that it’s important that people use sunscreen all year and all day long. Ohioans often take the winters,to travel to other states or countries where the UV index may be higher. Another contributor to the upward trend, according to the Cleveland Clinic dermatologist, is the increased awareness around melanoma.

Lucas said she’s gone from seeing a few patients a month to several a day and thinks that people are coming in sooner to get moles and spots checked. 

“Often what brings people in is a changing spot, a new brown spot that they haven’t seen before,” said Dr. Lucas. “Sometimes people say, ‘My hairdresser told me to come in, I was getting a massage and this is something that they saw,’ so it’s kind of a variety of all those things that drive people in.”

Some basic rules of thumb to protect yourself from melanoma are: 

  • Staying out of the sun during its peak time, anywhere between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. 

  • Wearing protective clothing when you’re out, which are clothes with a UPF factor that is designed to block up to 98% of the sun’s rays. 

  • Sunscreen, which should be worn every day and reapplied every two hours or more if you’re out swimming, sweating, etc. 

If you are concerned about a new mole or bump on your skin, make an appointment with your doctor or dermatologist as soon as possible because the survival rate is about 99% when localized versus when the cancer has spread.