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The peer-reviewed journal of the Sax Institute
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

The economics of skin cancer prevention with implications for Australia and New Zealand: where are we now?

Louisa Gordon A B C * , Sophy Shih D , Caroline Watts D E , David Goldsbury E and Adele Green A F
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Population Health Department, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

B School of Nursing and Cancer and Palliative Care Outcomes Centre, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

C Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

D Surveillance, Epidemiology and Research Programs, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, Australia

E The Daffodil Centre, University of Sydney, a joint venture with Cancer Council NSW, Sydney, Australia

F Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute and Faculty of Biology Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, UK


Public Health Research and Practice 32, e31502119 https://doi.org/10.17061/phrp31502119
Published: 10 March 2022

2022 © Gordon et al. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence, which allows others to redistribute, adapt and share this work non-commercially provided they attribute the work and any adapted version of it is distributed under the same Creative Commons licence terms.

Abstract

The incidence of skin cancer, including melanoma, continues to climb in white populations around the world, imposing a large and growing burden on health systems and individuals. Harmful exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation, mostly solar UV, is the most avoidable cause of skin cancer risk and mortality. Many economic evaluations attest to the favourable benefits for governments and citizens from skin cancer prevention programs. This overview presents the current ‘state of play’ of the economics of skin cancer prevention. More research is required to document contemporary costs of managing skin cancer in Australia and New Zealand to accurately assess the true savings from primary prevention. New directions are proposed for ways that economics could contribute to the investment case for prevention. The majority of skin cancers are avoidable and curable, yet cost the Australian health economy A$1.7 billion each year. Therefore primary prevention of skin cancers must remain high on the public health agenda.