UF wins national award for skin cancer prevention project
The University of Florida has received a national award for the GatorSHADE program, a College of Nursing skin cancer prevention project for elementary school students.
The American Academy of Nursing, the national honorary organization of North American nursing leaders, presented one of six of its 2000 Media Awards to Carol Reed Ash, R.N., Ed.D., F.A.A.N., the UF College of Nursing Kirbo Endowed Chair and eminent scholar. Ash represented the university at the academy’s annual meeting last month.
GatorSHADEä is the brainchild of Ash, who also is an American Cancer Society professor of oncology nursing, and Jill W. Varnes, Ed.D., C.H.E.S., a professor in UF’s College of Health and Human Performance.
Launched in 1994, the program began with the distribution of GatorSHADEä hats and information cards to children attending UF football games.
That led to the development of a complete curriculum package designed to teach elementary students about sun-safe habits and the hazards of over-exposure to ultraviolet radiation. The package includes a 16-minute videotape, two-player board game, exercises, experiments, a hat, sunglasses and a take-home information packet for parents. The curriculum was field tested for two years at P.K. Yonge Elementary School in Gainesville to ensure it raised children’s awareness.
“Skin cancer has become the No. 1 cancer found in the United States today and Florida has one of the nation’s highest incidences of the disease,” Ash said. “Yet skin cancer is one of the most easily detected and curable forms of cancer if treated early.”
Ash explained that increased sunbathing and loss of ozone in the upper atmosphere are two current theories about why skin cancer rates are rising.
“What is not debatable, however, is the impact of skin cancer,” Ash said. “It is increasingly important to make the public aware of the potential damage ultraviolet radiation causes.”
Ash and Varnes plan to distribute the curriculum nationwide at no cost to schools if sponsors can be found.
The nursing academy presents the media awards each year to individuals or organizations whose use of media increased public awareness of the effect of specific public policies on people’s health, motivated specific actions to improve health care for diverse groups of people or depicted health-promoting activities.
The other winners of Media Awards this year were WGBH-FM in Boston; WBFF Fox 45-TV in Baltimore, Md.; the American Heart Association; Makovsky & Company, a New York City public relations firm; and the Institute of Healthcare Advancement, a California non-profit foundation.