Geographical location and sunburn in Queensland adults

The rate of melanoma diagnosis in Queensland is higher than than in any other geographical location in the world.1 In turn, geographical areas outside of major metropolitan regions in Australia have an increased number of excess deaths as a result of melanoma compared with metropolitan areas.2 The higher number of excess deaths (difference in actual deaths in an area/number of deaths in metropolitan areas) caused by melanoma in non-metropolitan areas2 may be the result of these populations being exposed to higher concentrations of excess sunlight, a known cause of skin cancer. An acutely observable outcome of excess sunlight exposure is sunburn, which is a risk factor for skin cancer development and frequent burning of the skin is a risk factor for the development of basal cell carcinoma.3 The current study aims to examine differences in the incidence of sunburn by geographical location, and also the likelihood of sunburn by geographical location.