People who live at the Equator are more prone to getting skin cancer, for a couple of reasons...the sun is closer to the Earth there, hence stronger and sun screen isn't ( well, perhaps now it is, but it didn't used to be )normally used there, as it is here.
My mother, God rest her soul, was born in the 1920’s, in the south. It would have never occurred to her and her sister to work out in the sun without wide-brimmed hats and long sleeves, especially since they were redheads. They knew nothing of skin cancer, but ivory skin and NO freckles, were the desired outcomes.