Health Knowledge among the Millennial Generation

Abstract

The Millennial Generation, also known as Generation Y, is the demographic cohort following Generation X, and is generally regarded to be composed of those individuals born between 1980 and 2000. They are the first to grow up in an environment where health-related information is widely available by internet, TV and other electronic media, yet we know very little about the scope of their health knowledge. This study was undertaken to quantify two domains of clinically relevant health knowledge: factual content and ability to solve health related questions (application) in nine clinically related medical areas. Study subjects correctly answered, on average, 75% of health application questions but only 54% of health content questions. Since students were better able to correctly answer questions dealing with applications compared to those on factual content contemporary US high school students may not use traditional hierarchical learning models in acquisition of their health knowledge.