Carry out a Sun Safety Assessment

One of the first tasks in developing a sun safety program is to complete an assessment of your workplace. This is a useful way to understand what hazards exist and what can be done to protect employees.

The Be Sunsible Sun Safety assessment will help you to identify high UVR exposure risks and determine what control measures and policies could be implemented to reduce employees’ risk of heat illnesses and skin cancer.

Winter sun safety controls are not much different than summer protective behaviours but you may want to emphasize some more than others at different times of the year. It is important to assess your workplace for sun safety throughout the year and tailor your approach to ensure your policies and organizational culture support a sun safe environment all year long.

There are 3 main objectives for a Sun Safety assessment:

Identify sun and heat hazards.

Determine the most appropriate sun safety control measures to address the hazard.

Prioritize which hazards to address and control measures to implement.

When to carry out a Sun Safety Assessment:

Completing an assessment before you create your sun safety program can help you make the best decisions on how to reduce risks for your outdoor workers and demonstrates due diligence in the event of a legal claim. Sun safety assessments should be conducted frequently, based on changes to the work environment and for every new work site. It can also be used to monitor progress as you roll out your Be Sunsible program.

Start your Sun Safety Assessment »Policies are an important part of creating a sun safe workplace environment. If you already have a sun safety policy, learn more below about the value of carrying out a policy analysis.

Do you already have a sun safety policy?

It’s a good idea to assess your existing policy.

Policy Analysis

A policy analysis will help you determine if you have included all the important aspects of a comprehensive sun safety policy. It should be carried out whenever there are any changes to your current policy or even before a policy has been created. This will help you figure out if you have included all essential best practices, and give you direction on potential best practices to include in the future.

Policy analysis will be helpful in many ways, including:

To allow you to assess your policy as you roll out your Be Sunsible program and to make changes as you identify gaps.
To help demonstrate due diligence should you be faced with a legal claim.
To ensure you have included all essential aspects of a comprehensive sun safety policy.

There are four main strategies that should be included in a comprehensive sun safety policy:

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Engineering Controls
Administrative Controls
Sun Safety Training and Awareness

Each of the above strategies has a number of control measures to improve sun safety. When creating or updating your sun safety policy, choose the measures that are most appropriate for your workplace.

Start your Sun Safety Policy Analysis [PDF].

Check out the Be Sunsible Sample Sun Safety Policy [PDF] to see what a comprehensive policy could look like.

Download Step 2 resources *Please note, this will download a zipped file size 1.63 MB. Continue to Step 3

Download Step 2 resources Continue to Step 3

The Be Sunsible Program Resources

After you've read through the steps, visit our Be Sunsible resources including videos, brochures, presentations, posters and more to get you started!

View Resources

Non-melanoma skin cancer accounts for an average of 14 workdays lost per diagnosis¹.

The Be Sunsible Program Resources

After you've read through the steps, visit our Be Sunsible resources including videos, brochures, presentations, posters and more to get you started!

View Resources

View References

Orenstein, M. R., Dall, T., Curley, P., Chen, J., Tamburrini, A. L., & Petersen, J. (2010). The economic burden of occupational cancers in Alberta. Calgary, AB: Alberta Health Services.

Together, we can reduce the risk of cancer in Alberta by about 45%.

Carry out a Sun Safety Assessment

There are 3 main objectives for a Sun Safety assessment:

When to carry out a Sun Safety Assessment:

Do you already have a sun safety policy?

The Be Sunsible Program Resources

The Be Sunsible Program Resources

View References

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