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

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.