UV Radiation Exposure Related to Age, Sex, Occupation, and Sun Behavior Based on Time-Stamped Personal Dosimeter Readings

Abstract

Objective: To assess individual time-related (timestamped) UV radiation (UVR) dose pattern and sun exposure behavior.

Solar UV exposure of children in a summer school in Valencia, Spain

“…In Japan (Ono et al 2005), the weekly mean of daily UV exposure in summer (July) is in a range 91-170 J/m 2 for 8 to 9 year-old schoolchildren, approximately one-third of our measurements (266-324 J/m 2 ). In Denmark (Thieden et al 2004), the ER in July was 6.4% for all study subjects, and for children from 4-15 years old the percentage was similar to ours (5.9%).…”

“…In another work, in Japan (Ono et al 2005), the weekly mean of daily UV exposure in summer (July) was in a range of 91-170 J/m 2 . In Denmark (Thieden et al 2004), the ER in July was 6.4% for all study subjects, including children from 4 to 15. In Valencia (Spain) (Serrano et al 2011) the ER in late spring was 6.1% for children from 6 to 8 years old and 4.5% for children from 10-11 years old.…”

“…A review of some 30 studies on exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation in young people has recently been published (Wright and Reeder 2005). Some of these studies on individual solar UVER exposure used personal dosimeters on schoolchildren and adolescents (Guy et al 2003;Kimlin and Parisi 2001;Ono et al 2005;Thieden et al 2004) Although it is difficult to compare results from different studies, due to the different approaches and methods used, exposure ratio (ER) was chosen to minimize the effects of latitude and time of day. ER is defined as the ratio between the personal dose on a selected body site and the corresponding ambient dose on a horizontal plane during the same exposure period.…”

Novel approach to analysing large data sets of personal sun exposure measurements

“…This conclusion needs to be to be corroborated on larger population groups, in order to provide better statistics. The approach could also be tested on other groups that show similarity in exposure behaviour, such as golfers or gardeners (24), especially for the importance of the knowledge of their group behaviour from a public health point of view (49).…”

“…Ideally, a dosimeter should be precise, accurate, reliable, and independent of temperature and humidity; it should have a reproducible biological response; and be inexpensive (11). To date, dosimeters used to measure personal UVR exposure have had a response that closely mimicked the erythemal action spectrum (EAS) (sunburning response) as defined by the International Commission on Illumination (18,23,24). Other dosimeters are tailored for different action spectra, such as a biological spore dosimeter which is used to estimate DNA-damaging UVR exposure EAS (25).…”