Justification

COMPREV(P)CANCER · R&D&I Project PID2020-116487RB-100
 

Funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the State Research Agency
(MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033)

Skin cancer is currently a growing global epidemic with a major impact on health services. It is the second most prevalent cause of mortality in industrialised countries and is spreading among the young population, making melanoma the most common cancer among adults under the age of thirty and the second most common type of cancer among adolescents and young people. Most of the affected population may have suffered damage from excessive exposure to UV rays during their adolescence and early youth, and research in various countries points to university students as a risk group.

The project is the first international multidisciplinary study to jointly analyse the knowledge, attitudes and habits of the population and the strategic evaluation of communication campaigns on skin cancer prevention.

Project innovation

  • The project is a pioneer internationally in bringing together a multidisciplinary team from the fields of Communication Sciences and Health Sciences to study photoprevention of skin cancer. Specialists in dermatology, oncology, psychiatry, strategic communication, media discourse analysis, social media communication and gender approaches are participating.
  • It is the first scientific study to generate specific results on preventive communication in skin cancer with direct transfer to health entities, foundations and associations, key players in the preventive network in Spain.
  • It is the first project in Spain to focus on strategic communication of photoprevention, evaluating the effectiveness of real skin cancer prevention campaigns.
  • This is the first international study to address discussions about sun protection on social media, combining content analysis methodologies within the framework of agenda setting with sentiment analysis on social media.
  • It provides the first specific empirical study on the university population, identified as a risk group in previous research in Spain.
  • It innovatively introduces a gender perspective into the reception of preventive communication, going beyond sample segmentation by sex.

GOALS

GOAL 1

Organise and categorise multidisciplinary research on photoprotection communication for the prevention of skin cancer, drawing on the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary nature of the team.

GOAL 2

Analyse the knowledge, attitudes and communication of the population studied regarding tanning, skin cancer and sun protection.

GOAL 3

Analyse the strategic communication of sun protection that is disseminated on social media in Spain.

GOAL 4

Determine the effectiveness of strategic communication on sun protection in campaigns disseminated on social media in Spain.

GOAL 5

Transfer knowledge to health institutions and associations, the main disseminators of strategic communication on sun protection in Spain (ECPCPs).

Project PID2020-116487RB-100 financed by: