Changes in nutrition knowledge among first- and second-year medical students following implementation of an integrated nutrition curriculum

Existing studies suggest that many of the objectives called for by the National Academy of Sciences in its 1985 report are not being addressed in medical student education. Members of the Nutrition Curriculum Working Group at the UCLA School of Medicine prepared a list of proficiencies in nutrition and developed a coordinated, vertically integrated, two-year nutrition education curriculum to address those objectives. To assess the impact of the curriculum on students' knowledge, the authors tested a cohort of students at repeated intervals over a two-year period using a Nutrition Progress Survey drawn from the Nutrition Test-Item Bank developed at the University of Alabama. There was a significant increase in knowledge over the three administrations of the Progress Survey as measured by total score. This was largely accounted for by an increase in the number of correct responses, which rose from 39% at pre-test to 62% at delayed follow-up. In spite of a significant increase in nutrition knowledge, the low percentage correct indicates that nutritional content should be threaded throughout the core clerkship Curriculum as well.