“Sun-Safe”

Sun-Safe is an app that aims to decrease the misinformation surrounding skin cancer, especially in Staten Island where melanoma (the most fatal form of skin cancer) has the highest rates. To decrease these high rates, our app provides users with free resources, such as free sunscreen funded by Health Research, Inc. and New York State.

Initially, our idea was inspired by one of our group member’s work in creating assemblies at high schools in Staten Island. When our members organized these assemblies with approximately 1,000 students in attendance, she sent out a survey on how the students felt about their knowledge of skin safety before and after the presentation, and the results showed a significant increase in knowledge after the assembly. Thus, these results supported our hypothesis that a large contributing factor to high rates of melanoma is misinformation. Now, 1,000 people may seem like a lot, but that is only a small fraction of Staten Islanders. With this, we decided to create an app that has the same impact in informing the public about the dangers of skin cancer and giving them personalized suggestions on how to be sun-safe while providing incentives, such as free sunscreen.

Currently, our app is a mockup, but we are working on making it an actual app that will be available to the public this summer with the partnership of Columbia University and funding from the New York State, and Health Research, Inc.