Long-term development of parental knowledge about skin cancer risks in Germany: Has it changed for the better?

Substantial public health efforts have been undertaken throughout the last 25years to increase awareness about skin cancer risks in the German population. An evaluation of long-term effects of these awareness campaigns and preventive activities on the population level and in specific subgroups is yet lacking. We address the temporal development of knowledge about skin cancer risk factors and agreement to the necessity of sun protection in different outdoor situations among parents of young children. We compiled data from four population-based surveys comprising data from 8184 parents of 3- to 6-year-old children in two regions of Germany performed over a nineteen-year period between 1993 and 2012. These individual cross-sectional studies used an identical methodology to recruit study subjects and to assess the principal outcome measures. Overall, parental knowledge about skin cancer risk factors and agreement to the necessity of sun protection improved significantly over the nineteen-year period. For instance, the recognition of fair skin/hair, sunburns during childhood and a high number of naevi, respectively, being risk factors for skin cancer increased by 20.0%, 19.9% and 19.2% from the first to the most recent survey. Two remaining knowledge gaps became evident: (i) the underrating of intermittent intensive sun exposure as a skin cancer risk factor and (ii) the erroneous belief that clouds provide sufficient sun protection at midday during summertime. The messages of future public health campaigns in Germany addressing skin cancer risks and informing about preventive measures for sun protection should thus be refined regarding these aspects.