Are College Students Interested in Family Health History Education? A Large Needs Assessment Survey Study

Ming Li, Oi-Man Kwok, Ping Ma, Tung-Sung Tseng and Lei-Shih Chen ()
Additional contact information
Ming Li: Department of Health Sciences, Towson University, Towson, MD 21252, USA
Oi-Man Kwok: Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Ping Ma: Department of Health Behavior, School of Public Health, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Tung-Sung Tseng: Behavioral and Community Health Sciences Program, School of Public Health, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA
Lei-Shih Chen: Department of Health Behavior, School of Public Health, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 3, 1-11

Abstract: Family health history (FHH) is an essential foundation for personalized disease prevention. As the incidence of early-onset chronic diseases is increasing among college students, it is important to provide them with the education required to learn about their FHH. This study aimed to assess college students’ interest in receiving FHH education, preferred topics, and desired learning methods. We invited college students to complete an online survey from a large research-intensive university. A total of 2276 college students completed the survey. Nearly half of the participants self-identified as non-Hispanic white (45.5%). Slightly more than half of the sample (53.9%) were not interested in receiving FHH education mainly due to low prioritization. Among those who expressed interest in obtaining FHH education, the three most desired learning topics were the ability to interpret FHH information (76.1%), the application of FHH in disease prevention (72.0%), and FHH information collection strategies (63.6%). Computer-based learning (51.1%) was the most preferred educational method. Moreover, females, older individuals, those who have FHH in first-degree relatives, and participants who were members of racial and ethnic groups showed greater interests in receiving FHH education ( p s < 0.05). Strategies to promote college students’ awareness, collection, and use of FHH are needed.

Keywords: family health history; college students; education; needs assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/2596/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/2596/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:3:p:2596-:d:1053266

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().