Why is New Zealand's Melanoma Problem So Bad?

Why is New Zealand's Melanoma Problem so Bad?

Date of publication: 1998

Gerald Smith

Industrial Research Limited

PO Box 31-310, Lower Hutt

The annual incidence of melanoma amongst the non-M

ori population in New Zealand has doubled over the last ten years and one of the factors which could be contributing to this alarming trends is an increase in the level of solar erythemal UV radiation.

There has long been indirect, but somewhat anecdotal, evidence of the harshness of solar UV radiation in New Zealand, eg. the rapid deterioration of materials exposed to sunlight. However, until ten years ago there were very few data relating to carcinogenic solar UV radiation because of the technical difficulty of this type of measurement.

Document availability

You can download the full text of this document in PDF format below:

(229 kB)