The Skin Cancer Capitals of the World
Australia and New Zealand have the highest incidence and mortality rates of melanoma in the world.
Australia
There’s no competition for the country with the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. It’s Australia.
One out of two Australians gets skin cancer sometime in their life. Every year, 300,000 Australians have surgery to remove cancerous lesions from their skin. Australia’s problem is simple: It’s located as close to the equator as the Sahara desert, but most of the nation’s 20 million people are descendants of immigrants from the northern, fog-shrouded latitudes of Ireland and Britain.
“This is Mars for most of us, a totally alien environment,” says Robert Burton of the Australian government’s Cancer Strategies Group. In a national campaign, the government now urges people to wear hats, shirts, and suntan lotion whenever they’re outside. On the beaches, children and adults have begun wearing neck-to-knee swimsuits. It may sound extreme, Burton says, but it’s necessary. “You have to wonder how many pale-skinned people you see lying semi-naked in the sun in the middle of the day in the Sahara.
Israel was originally 3rd. highest in the world.
“We were third in the world in the incidents and mortality after Australia and New Zealand and it was, of course, because we have a lot of people who come from Europe with light skin,” Miri Ziv, the Director General of the Israel Cancer Association told The Media Line. “In the last five years, Israel dropped to the 20th country with the highest incidents (of skin cancer) and in terms of mortality, we dropped to number 13 for men and number 20 for women.” According to Ziv, the ICA has worked tirelessly for the past half-decade trying to promote a more sun-smart attitude. “We disseminated our sun-smart stuff in TV programs and in the media. Every summer we launch the early detection project and we encourage people to avoid sun bathing from 10-4.” Ziv cited the achievement that while melanoma is still rising significantly for most of the world, it has stabilized in Israel.
South Africa
In South Africa, among the white population, there is one of the highest incidences of malignant melanoma in the world and concern for skin cancer overall has grown in recent years. The estimated yearly incidence of malignant melanoma is 4.76 per 100,000 persons overall and 19.2 per 100,000 in whites. In 2009, the Western Cape of South Africa’s incidence for whites was unofficially reported as high as 69 per 100,000 population. South Africans are especially susceptible to skin cancer due to their exposure to year-round high ambient solar ultraviolet radiation (UV) and latitude (22–34°S) [3]. In a population of 54 million, the racial mix within South Africa shows a diverse population, consisting of black (80.2 %), white (8.4 %), colored (8.8 %) and Asian/Indian (2.5 %) populations