Skin Cancer Risk Score

Fitzpatrick Type 1 skin (very fair, always burns, never tans) has the least natural melanin to absorb and block UV radiation, which is why dermatology sources including the National Cancer Institute consistently list fair skin as a melanoma risk factor. This calculator reflects that relationship directly: skin types with less natural UV protection contribute more points toward Risk score, and darker Fitzpatrick types contribute fewer, matching the direction reported in the published literature.

No -- Risk score also includes points from Fitzpatrick skin type and, if applicable, first-degree family melanoma history, so a Painful sunburns value of 0 only removes that factor's contribution rather than zeroing the whole score. Someone with very fair skin and a family history of melanoma can still land in a moderate or higher risk band even after entering zero sunburns.

A "Yes" answer for First-degree melanoma adds a fixed 15 points to Risk score regardless of how many sunburns are entered, while Painful sunburns adds points proportionally, roughly 5 points per sunburn up to the calculator's cap. That means a single family-history "Yes" is roughly equivalent to three additional sunburns' worth of points, reflecting that a documented first-degree relative diagnosis is treated as a meaningfully weighted risk factor on its own.

No -- this is an educational heuristic built from three well-documented risk factors added together with fixed weights, not a formally validated clinical risk-prediction model. It's meant to illustrate which factors matter and roughly how they combine, not to replace a dermatologist's evaluation, skin examination, or a validated risk-assessment instrument used in a clinical setting.

No to both. A lower score here reflects lower statistical melanoma incidence for darker Fitzpatrick types, but it says nothing about outcomes if melanoma does occur. American Academy of Dermatology data shows melanoma in Black patients is disproportionately caught at a later stage -- roughly 22% present with nodal spread at diagnosis, compared to lower rates in lighter-skinned patients -- which contributes to worse survival. Separately, nevus (mole) count is not one of this calculator's inputs at all, even though it is one of the strongest predictors of melanoma risk in the published literature (a relative risk around 6.89 for people with high nevus counts) -- a person with many moles and few sunburns can be at meaningfully higher real-world risk than this score suggests, while a high sunburn count alone can push the score toward its upper end without any mole information being considered. Any new, changing, or concerning lesion should be evaluated by a dermatologist regardless of your score, skin tone, or mole count -- treat this score as a partial picture, not a complete risk assessment.