Abstract
In the early 1970s, environmental conservationists were becoming concerned that a reduction in the thickness of the atmospheric ozone layer would lead to increased levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation at ground level, resulting in higher population exposure to UV and subsequent harm, especially a rise in skin cancer. At the time, no measurements had been reported on the normal levels of solar UV radiation which populations received in their usual environment, so this lack of data, coupled with increasing concerns about the impact to human health, led to the development of simple devices that monitored personal UV exposure. The first and most widely used UV dosimeter was the polymer film, polysulphone, and this review describes its properties and some of the pioneering studies using the dosimeter that led to a quantitative understanding of human exposure to sunlight in a variety of behavioral, occupational, and geographical settings.
Highlights
In the early 1970s, environmental conservationists were becoming increasingly concerned that changes in the atmospheric ozone layer might be induced by both high-flying supersonic aircraft, and by the build-up of freons and related compounds
While evaluating the weathering characteristics of the polymers polysulphone (PSP) and polyphenylene oxide (PPO), Tony Davis and colleagues, based at a UK defense establishment, found that they both darkened when exposed to UV radiation [1]
Sun exposure in childhood is believed to be a critical factor in the risk of developing skin cancer later in life, so it was not surprising that a number of studies were undertaken to estimate the magnitude of solar UV exposure in children, ranging from babies to adolescents [29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38]
Summary
In the early 1970s, environmental conservationists were becoming increasingly concerned that changes in the atmospheric ozone layer might be induced by both high-flying supersonic aircraft, and by the build-up of freons and related compounds. It was believed that any reduction in the thickness of the ozone layer would lead to increased levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation at ground level, resulting in higher population exposure to UV and accompanying subsequent harm, especially a rise in skin cancer. No measurements had been reported on the normal levels of solar UV radiation which populations received in their usual environment, so this lack of data, coupled with increasing concerns about the impact to human health, led to the development of simple devices that monitored personal
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