Abstract Background:
Teaching of health and medical concepts in the K-12 curriculum may help improve health literacy. Purpose: The purpose of this project was to determine acceptability and preliminary efficacy of pilot implementation of a health literacy curriculum using brief clips from a popular television program. Methods: Participants included 55 ninth-grade students in a low-income school with a high proportion of minority students. The curriculum used three brief interspersed segments from the television show ER to teach basic topics in cardiology. After the 30-minute experimental curriculum, students completed open-ended surveys which were coded qualitatively. Results: The most common codes described “;enjoyment” (N=28), “;acquisition of new knowledge” (N=28), “;informative” (N=15), “;interesting” (N=12), and “;TV/video” (N=10). We found on average 2.9 examples of medical content per participant. Of the 26 spontaneously-generated verifiable statements, 24 (92.3%) were judged as accurate by two independent coders (k=0.70, P=.0002). Discussion: Use of brief segments of video material contributed to the acceptability of health education curricula without detracting from students’ acquisition of accurate information. Translation to Health Education Practice: Health education practitioners may wish to include brief clips from popular programming to motivate students and provide context for health-related lessons.
