title: Cancer understanding among Japanese students based on a nationwide survey.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The objective of this study was to determine cancer understanding among Japanese primary and secondary school students.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study design was a cross-sectional nationwide survey using a self-administered questionnaire. The prefecture with the lowest student population was set to 1, and that with the highest student population was set to 18 for elementary schools and 19 for junior high and high schools based on the ratio of the student population. In this way, 213 elementary schools, 222 junior high schools, and 208 high schools were selected from all 47 prefectures in Japan, and questionnaires were sent to each school. The questionnaire listed the names of 15 cancers and asked respondents to choose one answer from three: "Never heard of," "Heard of/Don't understand," or "Heard of/Understand."
  
  
  RESULTS
  Response rates for schools were 44.1 % (n = 94) for elementary schools, 46.4 % (n = 103) for junior high schools, and 55.8 % (n = 116) for high schools. A total of 8,876 questionnaires were used for the analysis. Our survey suggests that the most commonly understood types of cancer differed by grade, with lung cancer the most commonly understood in elementary school, leukemia in junior high schools, and breast cancer in high schools. Girls tended to demonstrate greater cancer understanding than boys, with particularly large differences by gender in rates of understanding of breast and uterine cancer at each assessed grade level.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Here, we examined Japanese primary and secondary school students. Marked differences in cancer recognition by grade and gender suggest that educational efforts are needed at various grade levels and gender-specific cancer education. Further, more than 50 % of students at any school level were not familiar with most cancers. It suggests that cancer education is deficient.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health and Sports, Niigata University of Health and Welfare, Niigata, Japan, sugisaki@nuhw.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Koshu
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sugisaki
authors.forename: Seiji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ueda
authors.forename: Hirofumi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Monobe
authors.forename: Hiroko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yako-Suketomo
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Eto
authors.forename: Masaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Ryoichi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mori
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology*; D012737:Sex Factors; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires