The impact of a cancer education program on the knowledge base of participating students.
BACKGROUND: Partners in Research is a ten-week summer elective designed to provide cancer-related educational activities. This study was undertaken to evaluate the impact of the program on the general cancer knowledge of medical students, pharmacy students, and undergraduate biology majors. METHODS: The 24 students enrolled in 1999 were evaluated using a pretest and post-test with 75 multiple-choice questions. RESULTS: The mean test score increased significantly from 46.6% to 53.0% (p = 0.001). Improvements were significant for general cancer knowledge and three specific disease categories (breast, gastrointestinal, and skin cancers). CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that the program does increase the cancer-related knowledge of students.