American Academy of Health Behavior

 
 
 

 

Assessment of Contamination in a Trial of Community-Based Cancer Education    

Per Tillgren, MPH, PhD;  
Mark Dignan, MPH, PhD;  
Robert Michielutte, PhD 

Objective: To assess contamination in a randomized, controlled trial of community health education among Native American women in North Carolina. Methods: A randomly selected sample of 185 participants were selected from the control groups. Data were collected by interview. Results: Approximately 25% were aware of a cancer program in the community, but very few (n=3) had specific knowledge of the content or had seen the educational materials. Conclusion: Contamination was minimal, and reinforces the need for process evaluation in community-based health education research to exclude contamination as a competing explanation for either positive or negative results.

Am J Health Behav 1998;22(4):292-297

 
 
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