SunWise and the UV Index Elisa Rim U.S. Environmental Protection Agency November 20, Why is SunWise important? Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the U.S. and incidence rates continue to rise American Cancer Society 2013 What is SunWise? SunWise provides trusted innovative educational materials at current educational standards to teach children and their care givers to protect themselves from overexposure to the sun Taught by over 50,000 educators and 40,000 schools and other youth organizations Work closely with partner organizations through formal agreements Targeted state specific skin cancer fact sheets Annual poster contest on sun safety with thousands of youth participants Federal leadership to the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention 3 In All 50 StatesProven Effective SunWise students show an 11% decrease in sunburns. SunWise Goal: Prevent Skin Cancer by Building Sun Safety Habits in Children Every $1 invested in SunWise earns $2 to $4 in public health savings. Free Resources The UV Index is a public information tool that gives a forecast of the intensity of solar UV radiation Weighted by ability to cause sunburn, so mostly related to UVB levels Includes solar angle, total column ozone, altitude, weather, and reflection factors Accessed over 1.5M times/month on EPA servers alone The UV Index US EPA offers daily and hourly UV Index forecasts Free UV Index app has over 500,000 downloads on all major platforms App also highlights winners of national sun safety poster contest The UV Index