IS YOUR JOB PUTTING YOU AT RISK FOR SKIN CANCER?

By S. Fabian

<A farmer leans over his crops tending to the vegetables and checking on his recent harvest.>
(Hustoles [date unknown])

The sun is everywhere. You can’t escape it, but you can reduce your chances of getting skin cancer by making it a habit to use sun protection on a daily basis especially if your job requires you to be outdoors for a majority of time. There was a person that I knew who worked with a close relative of mine. They worked as a structural welder, it’s basically like a welder but that wields larger metal parts for example roads, base of buildings, and ships. They are constantly hanging  from these buildings at high altitude working.   Let alone from the equipment that they are working with poses as a direct exposure to these harmful rays but also being at high altitudes. Since the higher you are in the Earth’s atmosphere the more likely you are to be exposed to unfiltered UVB rays. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, UV radiation exposure increases between 4 and 5 percent every 1,000 feet above sea level (Skin Cancer [date unknown]) that means that the higher one is above sea level the more there is a call to use sunscreen. People don’t really think of it as any harm until something happens to them. Take that welder friend for an example. His job required him to stay protected from the harm of the equipment used by using some sort of eye protection, long sleeves light colored clothing, and a hard hat, like the man in the picture.

<Structural welder at work>
(Structural [date unknown]) 

However, they didn’t enforce any rules for him to wear sunscreen so when he would come home I remember seeing him all red from the bottom of the eyes all the way down to his chin. For a clear picture look at the image above, do you see the exposed part of that man's face. Yeah, imagine seeing that all red even when they were no longer even outside that’s how bad it gets.  Well anyways this family friend just thought of it as a suntan like how one gets at the beach and never really put much  pay attention to it. It wasn’t till one day that he started to notice a little spot that appeared on he’s face that wasn’t there before. His family all urged him to see a doctor or dermatologist to make sure it wasn’t anything too serious. So, he reluctantly went thinking it wasn’t going to be anything out of the ordinary. That’s when he was told that it was a good thing that he went in when he did because it was just developing.

<Basal Cell Carcinoma>
(Hilton [date unknown])

He was diagnosed with early stages of superficial basal cell carcinoma. He was treated but the doctor recommended that he not take it as a joke just because he caught it this time and got treated. There were possibilities of it reoccurring especially due to the nature of his job. He was one of the lucky ones to get that treated as early as he did, and it didn’t escalate to anything more major but since then he remembers the doctors’ words very clearly through his mind. He wishes that it would never happen to him or his loved ones again. Now he wears UV protection all the time at work and in his regular daily life. Making sure his family is protected too. I remember him telling us all this to warn us and also made sure we used sunscreen regardless of how the weather is. Oof I remember my sister giving me a hard stare with her eyes saying “I told you so”. For I was never one to really like using sunscreen.  

This got me thinking if there were any other outdoor occupations that posed the same risk. Was our family friend more at risk for being at high altitudes and not wearing protection? I found that research indicates that occupational exposure to UV radiation is high in many outdoor occupations and suggests that people working in such occupations are more likely to develop non-melanoma skin cancer (Fartash 2012). Hence the reason why my friend got BCC as it is a type of non-melanoma skin cancer.  So why is this important? If you have a family member that works in this type of occupation you should be well informed in order to help them be aware of this possibility that they too can develop a form of skin cancer. If you don’t take this information for yourself, think about others you might accidentally help out one day. I say this from my personal stance, as I love learning and whenever I find information that I had no clue about (and also has been backed up by research that has been conducted and I found as well).  I like to take action and implement change especially if it concerns my family’s wellbeing. Now, if they listen to me then great. If not then I did my part by letting them know, some goes for you all.

. . . So back to the topic let's start off with knowing what non-melanoma skin cancer is. It is any type of skin cancer that is not considered melanoma (occurs when something goes wrong in the melanin-producing cells (melanocytes) that give color to your skin). Nonmelanoma skin cancer includes: basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, Merkel cell carcinoma. They are associated with cell damage due to prolonged or chronic exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays (Bibee 2022). On average an indoor worker is exposed to about 3% of UV radiation on a daily basis. What does this mean? That one probably fall within the 3% or less margin of exposure especially if one doesn't go outdoors that often. However, for many outdoor occupations, employees are in a situation that exposes them to natural UV radiation, often in significant (or considerable) amounts. UV radiation is the single most important cause of squamous cell carcinoma and its precursors, as well as of basal cell carcinoma (Apalla 2016). Let’s take field workers such as farmers, agriculture workers, and gardeners for example. Since they are also exposed to UV rays but at a lower altitude. . They spend much more time outdoors than most of us as it's part of their profession and without them we wouldn’t have a lot of our goods or well kept spaces. So I'm very thankful because it does take a certain someone to be out there in all sorts of weather tending to the lands but because of that they go up in the scale of exposure to an average of  about 10% of UV radiation exposure. Yikes!! Now that might not seem like a lot to you as you might be thinking , “psssh it's only 10% no worries' '. Remember this is on a daily basis that they receive this much. I know I certainly do not receive probably even the full 3% because I'm always in my room with a side lamp, not even the big ceiling light, just a small one at the most. Sometimes I might have just the slightest bit of the sun peeking through my blinds on a pretty day but that's really it for me unless I go out or something. It also definitely goes up more if the country or place where one is working relies heavily on field workers. So 10% is considered a lot. So what I'm trying to get across is wear your sunscreen as it can prevent you from developing different forms of skin cancer. Regardless of how high up or how close to the sea-level one is working. One is still at risk of getting skin cancer and should use UV protection to help prevent it at all cost.

References

Apalla Z, Lallas A, Sotiriou E, Lazaridou E, Vakirlis E, Trakatelli M, Kyrgidis A, Ioannides D. 2016. Farmers develop more aggressive histologic subtypes of basal cell carcinoma. Experience from a Tertiary Hospital in Northern Greece. Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology. 30:17-20.

Bibee K. 2022. Nonmelanoma skin cancer. John Hopkins. www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-disease/nonmelanoma-skin-cancer.

Fartasch M, Diepgen TL, Schmitt J, Drexler H. 2012. The relationship between occupational sun exposure and non-melanoma skin cancer—clinical basics, epidemiology, occupational disease evaluation, and prevention. Dtsch Arztebl Int  109(43): 715–20

Hustoles T. Farmer leaning and tending to crops photo. Burst. [accessed 2023 Apr 04]. https://burst.shopify.com/photos/farmer-leaning-and-tending-to-crops.

Hilton S. Non-melanoma skin cancer: process, facts and costs. Dr. Hilton & Partner. [accessed 2023 Apr 04]. https://www.dr-hilton.de/en/skin-cancer-prevention/non-melanoma-skin-cancer.

Smit-Kroner C, Brumby S. 2015. Farmers sun exposure, skin protection and public health campaigns: An Australian perspective. Preventive medicine reports. 2:602-7.

Structural Metal Fabricators & Fitters at My Next Move. wwwmynextmoveorg. [accessed 2023 Apr 4]. https://www.mynextmove.org/profile/summary/51-2041.00.

The Skin Cancer Foundation. 2019 Jun. UV Radiation - The Skin Cancer Foundation. The Skin Cancer Foundation. https://www.skincancer.org/risk-factors/uv-radiation/.