An integrated nutrition curriculum in medical education.
R25 grant support from the NIH/NCI enabled the University of Arizona to assess nutrition education, develop and evaluate specific course content, and move toward comprehensive prevention-based nutrition education in 1991-1997. Hours of nutrition education increased to 115% over baseline, and students indicated greater satisfaction with the amount of nutrition instruction they received. Especially valuable was a course in prenatal and infant nutrition that paired each student with a pregnant patient. After the grant support ended, nutrition began to be crowded out of the curriculum by other, more traditional, topics, but a 57% gain over baseline was sustained. External support for nutrition education is urgently needed.
Thomson
C A
CA
University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson, USA. cthomson@u.arizona.edu
Taren
D
D
Koff
N
N
Marian
M
M
Canfield
L
L
Bassford
T
T
Ritenbaugh
C
C
D003479:Curriculum; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000592:standards*; D009316:National Institutes of Health (U.S.); D052756:Nutritional Sciences / Q000193:education*; D012109:Research Support as Topic; D012577:Schools, Medical; D014481:United States