Cancer prevention and control: where are the kids?

The Journal of Cancer Education May 2012 supplement #2 (27) entitled “Workforce Gaps and Opportunities in Cancer Prevention & Control” focused on the expanding need for a larger and more efficient cancer prevention workforce. Topics discussed ranged from the number of physician and nurse oncologists to communication and funding problems. In the “recommendations” sections of the papers in this special issue, no mention of cancer education/prevention opportunities for school-age children was made. Yet this is the age group that begins to make lifestyle choices such as tobacco and/or tanning booth use. Without proper health science information regarding these practices, youngsters are at risk of making uninformed and therefore poor lifestyle decisions. School-age children should be a major target for cancer prevention education. For example, in the 2012 Report of the Surgeon General on “Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults” (http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco), it was stated that “tobacco use is a pediatric epidemic, around the world as well as in the United States with nearly all tobacco use beginning in childhood and adolescence.” This editorial suggests a way to provide cancer prevention education to school-age children. The kids are there . order were: first—anatomy and physiology; second— science and medicine; third—genetics and reproduction; fourth—behavior, neurobiology, and the mind; fifth— man and animal relationships; and sixth—biotechnology. For example, 68 % of the grade K-8 children ranked anatomy and physiology, and sickness and medicine as their primary interests. Regarding their primary interests, only 11 % listed genetics and reproduction and 1.4 % listed biotechnology [1]. The teachers of these interested students, however, usually are not trained in science/health science education leaving it untaught. Two quotes from middle school students are revealing: “A lot of my teachers tell me that smoking causes lung cancer – but none of them can tell me how this happens” and “Skin cancer can be prevented I think. We haven't really discussed that in school” [2]. The problem of teachers being poorly prepared to teach science has been documented [3]. In summary, students will not be able to learn science if their teachers do not have adequate knowledge on the science they teach. Teachers need better preservice and inservice training in science to deepen their knowledge on the science content of the curriculum. Proper training of teachers in the health sciences, especially cancer prevention education, obviously is needed. It has been suggested that future advances made in improving the nation's health will not result from spectacular biomedical breakthroughs, but from advances in personally initiated actions that are directly influenced by the individual's health-related attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge through school-based health science education. It has been recommended that there be increased in-service and preservice professional development opportunities and incentives for persons responsible for teaching health education. Preservice professional preparation of all teachers should include E. R. Burns (*) Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 4301 West Markham St., Little Rock, AR 72205, USA e-mail: burnsbob@uams.edu J Canc Educ (2014) 29:209–210 DOI 10.1007/s13187-013-0582-x