Living in Florida, this one feels especially relevant to me. I play baseball, I’m outside a lot, and the sun here is no joke.

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, and according to the CDC, most cases are caused by overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun, tanning beds, or sunlamps. The good news is that the most preventable cause of skin cancer is exactly that UV overexposure, and when skin cancer is caught early, it’s highly curable.

What I like about this is how doable the prevention is. Sunscreen, a hat, some shade, long sleeves, and not using tanning beds. None of that is expensive or complicated, and it can prevent the most common cancer in the country.

This is also one of the areas I’ll get to learn more about during my dermatology rotation in my UCF research program this summer. I’m curious how often skin cancer gets caught late in communities that don’t have easy access to a dermatologist, because catching it early is the whole game.