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The risk of succumbing to a heat-related illness is high during these hotter summer days, especially if you don’t take proper care of your body’s largest organ.

Washington County Public Health Administrator Danielle Pettit-Majewski advises residents to stay in the shade especially during the hours of 10 a.m.-4 p.m. to avoid the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Pettit-Majewski also recommends to use sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher, “My mantra is like ‘gather and slather,’ So get everybody that’s going to be out, making sure that you slather them with sun screen. If you are going to be in a swimsuit you want to be thinking about like a shot glass is about how much sunscreen you would need to cover your body depending on the size, whether you’re a child or a larger adult. So you obviously want to make sure that you’re using enough sunscreen to cover your body well, to cover exposed skin.”

Pettit-Majewski also recommends while you’re applying sunscreen to think about the activity you’re about to do. For example if you’re going on a bike ride, you may want to cover your lower back that can be exposed by that movement. While wearing sunscreen and covering exposed skin not only protects you from the pain of a sunburn, it also helps lower your risk for skin cancer, which are mostly caused by too much exposure to UV rays.