May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month.

The Skin Cancer Foundation will launch its annual mobile education and screening program, Destination Healthy Skin, on Saturday, May 6, in Greenwich, Connecticut. 

The program educates the public about the importance of skin cancer early detection and effective sun protection. Inside the Destination Healthy Skin RV, local volunteer dermatologists provide free full-body skin cancer screenings in private exam rooms. All visitors receive information about skin cancer warning signs and proper sun protection, as well as product samples courtesy of program sponsors.

The RV will travel approximately 10,000 miles over four and a half months, making its way around the country before heading to Illinois in September for the final event of the season in Rockford. The Foundation will host Destination Healthy Skin events in approximately 30 cities. (A list of events is available at DestinationHealthySkin.org.)

“This will be the 13th year our RV has been on the road,” says Deborah S. Sarnoff, MD, president of The Skin Cancer Foundation and a dermatologist in private practice in New York, in a news release. “Over the years, with the help of hundreds of dermatologists, we’ve provided more than 27,000 free skin cancer screenings and identified more than 11,000 suspected skin cancers. Without this intervention, many of those skin cancers may have gone undetected until they began to grow and spread, thus becoming more difficult to treat.”

“This program is a free public health service that allows us to connect with thousands of people in a short period of time,” adds Dan Latore, executive director of The Skin Cancer Foundation. “And we may never know the number of people who have seen our early detection messaging on the side of the RV or in the extensive media coverage, but that extra reach is a big part of why this program is so valuable.”

The Foundation will document the RV’s journey on its website, SkinCancer.org, Sun & Skin News blog and social media channels so that people can follow along, thus expanding the reach of the program beyond the communities visited. 

The 2023 Destination Healthy Skin program is made possible by generous support from EltaMD Skin Care; Bristol Myers Squibb; DSM Personal Care; Genentech, A member of the Roche Group; Sun Bum; Merck & Co., Inc.; The Lynne Waxman Foundation; and The Sunshine Foundation.