Jaya Agrawal et al.
Academic Medicine
May 2005, Vol. 80, Issue #5, pg. 484-488.
Review by: Linda Heun, Ph.D. <lheun@aacom.org>
A questionnaire to measure medical students' knowledge of issues in the U.S. health care system and their perception of the importance and quality of health policy curricula at their medical schools was mailed to a probability sample of 516 first-year and 847 fourth-year students. Just over 50% of the sample responded with the following outcomes:
- Almost all knew of adverse health consequences for uninsured
- 40% underestimated the number of uninsured in the U.S.
- 32% didn't know that the U.S. had the highest life expectancy
- 27% didn't know that the U.S. had the highest health care costs per person
- 96% felt that knowledge of health policy was important to their career and
- 54% expressed dissatisfaction with the health policy curriculum at their school.
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