Limit your sun exposure now, especially if you have one or more of the risky 6. Doing so will mitigate your risk of the most deadly skin cancer type.

Painful past: A history of sunburn raises your melanoma risk.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—You wouldn’t know it from all the pink breast cancer awareness ribbons, but skin cancer is the most common of all cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. Some kinds of skin cancer—notably, the basal cell and squamous cell types—aren’t deadly. But melanoma is a different story: In the U.S. alone, one person dies from melanoma every hour. The good news is that with early detection and proper treatment, the cure rate is about 95 percent. And catching it early may have just gotten easier. In a new study presented at this month’s 67th annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD), Darrell Rigel, MD, clinical professor of dermatology at New York University Medical Center in New York City, identified 6 easy-to-understand factors that independently predict melanoma risk.

THE DETAILS: Dr. Rigel pulled data from 600 people, including 300 melanoma patients. From that analysis, he ID’d 6 characteristics, which he says independently predict melanoma risk—and which can be used to assess your own risk level of risk. They are:

1. History of blistering sunburns as a teenager (defined as one or more)
2. Red or blonde hair (natural blondes and redheads have more propensity to burn)
3. Marked freckling of the upper back (defined as the area from the top of the shoulders to the shoulder blades)—it’s a sign of excessive sun exposure and your susceptibility to damage from it
4. Family history of melanoma
5. History of actinic keratoses (scaly lesions produced by excessive exposure to sunlight)
6. Outdoor summer jobs (such as being a lifeguard, housepainter, or camp counselor—any job that required being outdoors all the time) for 3 or more years as a teenager

WHAT IT MEANS: Any one of the six increases your risk of melanoma twofold to threefold over that of the general population. If you have 2 or more risk factors, you have 10 to 20 times the risk of the general population, warns Dr. Rigel. Know your risk, and you know if you have to pay even more attention than most people towards tilting the odds in your favor. “Melanoma is the only cancer that’s increasing in rate, despite all the tools we now have at our disposal to combat it,” points out Dr. Rigel. “That’s why prevention and vigilance are critical—especially if you’re predisposed by your heritage or past sun exposure to developing it.”

Here’s how you can minimize your risk of skin cancer: