(AP) — As a state with a large number of outdoor workers, Kansas has a problem with skin cancer.

A 2009 study by the Center for Disease Control shows that more than a million people in the United States have been diagnosed with skin cancer. That makes it the most common cancer.

Kansas has 9 percent more new melanoma cases than the national average. About 80 Kansans die from skin cancer every year.

Bill Heer has had several suspicious spots removed from his arms, including a few that were pre-melanoma skin cancer. The former head agronomist at Kansas State’s South-Central Kansas Research Field recalls burning often while growing up on a farm in the 1950s and 1960s.

Experts say those early burns put people at risk.