Breast awareness through “Lecture of Life” at junior high school

Abstract

The Basic Plan for Promoting Cancer Countermeasures was formulated by Japanese government in 2018 and stresses the importance of conveying accurate information about cancer to children by utilizing doctors, external lecturers such as cancer patients and experienced people. In response to this, “Cancer Education” was added to the “New Course of Study”, and would be fully implemented junior high schools from fiscal year 2021. Since fiscal year 2014, the Niigata Health Foundation has been holding lectures on “basic knowledge about cancer”, “the importance of early detection and early treatment”, and “the importance of medical examinations” as part of cancer education for junior high school students. Since fiscal year 2014, 39 schools and about 5,700 students have attended the course, and in fiscal year 2020, it was held at 10 more schools. The lectures were given by doctors from cancer medical center hospitals, etc., and questionnaires were collected from students before and after the lectures. According to the results of the 2020 survey (994 valid responses), the number of students who responded “yes” to the question “Do you think cancer has a high probability of healing when detected early?” increased from 77.8% before to 92.1% (1.18 times) after the lecture. From the number of respondents who answered “yes” to “Do you think you will get a cancer checkup?” increasing from 54.8% to 88.8% (1.62 times), it was found that junior high school students’ awareness of “cancer” and “medical examination” changed before and after the lecture. In order to spread “Breast awareness” that should be practiced in daily life, it is important and effective to raise awareness not only for the age group affected by cancer but also for the younger generation that is in the stage before that.