Stephanie Ostroff is a speech-language pathologist and journalist. She enjoys blending knowledge from both fields to shine a light on innovators and changemakers in health care.
Gina Daley, MHCI '24, unites physicians, retailers, and influencers around a shared mission
It began with a dialogue between competitors at L’Oréal’s Dermatology and Retail Alliance (DRA) event in 2022. An idea emerged. What if retail giants put aside their differences and joined dermatologists to rally behind a common goal: combating skin cancer?
Gina Daley, MHCI ’24, then Assistant Vice President of Integrated Health at L’Oréal Dermatological Beauty (LDB), was in the right room at the right time. And she knew how to transform that collaborative energy into action by harnessing the Master of Health Care Innovation (MHCI) program she was enrolled in.
In 2025, Sun Responsibly, an unbranded public health campaign based on a project Daley developed for her final MHCI course, lit up the aisles of CVS, Walgreens, Ulta, and other major retailers across the United States. The campaign aims to prevent skin cancer by building awareness around the risks of unprotected sun exposure.
In its first year, Sun Responsibly reached 11,000 retail stores and 3 million media impressions. Partnering with the Skin Cancer Foundation, Daley and the DRA see ongoing potential to save lives and reduce the $9 billion annual cost of skin cancer treatment in the US.
Daley pitched a PSA campaign, “the ‘Got Milk?’ of sunscreen,” as her MHCI final project.
“There’s power in a unified and consistent message, and that’s what Sun Responsibly can represent,” says Daley, who in 2026 became Vice President of Integrated Health. “To see my MHCI final project come to life has been really exciting.”
Generating consensus and momentum
The DRA is a collaboration between dermatologists and retail professionals initiated by L’Oréal Dermatological Beauty in 2021. The following year Daley took charge of the alliance—and began her MHCI at Penn.
"For L’Oreal Dermatological Beauty US, supporting Daley’s pursuit of the MHCI degree was a deliberate investment in talent,” said SVP of Medical Relations for L’Oreal Dermatological Beauty Tom Allison. “LDB recognizes that the industry requires leaders who understand the complexities of the health care ecosystem. By sponsoring this advanced education, LDB leveraged the MHCI curriculum to support an impactful public health movement.”
Although an interest in telehealth spurred her to apply for the master’s program, the discourse around skin cancer prevention propelled Daley in a different direction after graduation.
“This call to action that we got back in 2022 really loomed large in my head throughout the MHCI curriculum,” Daley says. “So much so that in my last class, which was Pitching Innovation [now Designing Innovation], this PSA campaign—essentially the ‘Got Milk?’ of sunscreen—was what I pitched. That was my project.”
Daley says her team integrated behavioral economics concepts to create a campaign that speaks to a range of motivations for wearing sunscreen. Sun Responsibly incorporates nudges (suggesting placing sunscreen next to toothpaste to make it a daily habit) and loss aversion principles (warnings about premature skin aging). It is informed by Daley’s understanding of framing and choice architecture.
She also drew upon behavioral science to find common ground among competing stakeholders in the DRA, which expanded from 3 retail partners in 2021 to 14 in 2025, including Sephora and Walmart. “It’s been really special seeing the response from these retailers that ordinarily don’t collaborate with one another on much,” she says, “but for public health they have come together on this campaign.”
At DRA events, which increased from annual to quarterly under Daley’s leadership, “We had this ongoing dialogue around barriers to daily sunscreen use, and that dialogue was so rich. It made us all fall deeper in love with the problem, so that we were able to come up with an idea together that we’re now testing.”
Reaching audiences where they are
Beyond the campaign’s existence in thousands of brick-and-mortar retail locations, Sun Responsibly had a significant presence at the 2025 American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Annual Meeting and at ZCon, the largest gathering of Gen Z content creators.
At ZCon, influencers took part in a Sun Responsibly panel around wellness. The goal, Daley shared, is to create a community of Gen Z influencers who can build awareness about the benefits of daily sunscreen use.
Connecting with younger audiences on social media is top of mind as the Sun Responsibly campaign gears up for its next summer season. Through social listening, LDB uncovered a rise in misinformation about sun protection on platforms like TikTok and Instagram in 2025. With content creators promoting tanning and spreading claims about the toxicity of sunscreen, Sun Responsibly faces an uphill battle.
“I would argue that now, because of those trends, this campaign is more necessary than ever,” says Daley.
Sun Responsibly will roll out its own Instagram profile and website in 2026. It will also feature in a film, Conquering Skin Cancer, scheduled for release in May.
The campaign will return to the AAD Annual Meeting this spring, where thought leaders in dermatology and retail will band together in the name of skin cancer prevention. Discussions about sun protection will center on how to effectively reach patients beyond exam rooms—since many people never seek out a dermatologist.
“Skin cancer can affect everyone” says Daley. “I think acknowledging that the incidence of skin cancer is on the rise, and that it is preventable—this is something that can really unify people.”