A few years ago, Roslindale resident Josephine Adjei, 29, started carrying a large black umbrella whenever she went outside.

“I’ve been a bit more paranoid about skin cancer so I’m trying to protect myself from the sun,” Adjei said, “and it provides good shade.”

Irene Liu, a visiting scholar at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, hid under a yellow-and-blue-flowered umbrella as she walked through Boston Common one hot Sunday morning. “If the sunshine is very strong, I will use it,” she said. “It’s not to make a fashion statement.”

For years we’ve heard about the perils of sun exposure, and people have gotten used to

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