Research Abstract
Aims of the study: To assess secondary school students` knowledge about some selected micronutrients and compare between rural and urban school students regarding their knowledge.
Subjects & Method: A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used. The present study was carried out in 8 schools in Assiut District. The sample consisted of 880 subjects: 440 students from rural schools and 440 from urban schools. Two tools were used: the Socio- economic scale developed by Abd El-Twaab (2004) and a self- administered questionnaire which was designed to assess students` knowledge about vitamin A, iron and iodine.
Results: More than half of the rural students and more than two thirds of the urban students were aged 16 17 years. Females constituted 58% and 57.3% of the rural and urban students respectively. Less than half of the rural students and less than one third of the urban students had low social class. There were no statistically significant differences between rural students' total score of knowledge and their socio-demographic characteristics, also between urban students' knowledge and their social class.
Conclusion: The majority of the rural and urban students from both sexes and all social classes had poor scores of knowledge about vitamins A, iron and iodine.
Recommendations: A health education program should be conducted to educate students about micronutrients.
