To assess the impact of a classroom-based nutrition and health education intervention among student community volunteers in improving their knowledge on individual topics.

Prospective follow-up study. Topic-wise knowledge change among student volunteers on individual topics (twenty-one questions related to nutrition and health, eight questions related to infectious diseases and two questions related to obesity and hypertension) pertaining to nutrition and health was evaluated at baseline and after intervention, using the McNemar test.

Six different colleges affiliated to Osmania University, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Six hundred and eighty-seven student volunteers under the National Service Scheme, of both genders, average age 19 years.

A significant mean improvement of 11·36 (sd 8·49, P < 0·001) was observed in the overall nutrition and health knowledge scores of the student volunteers after the education intervention. The McNemar test showed that knowledge on individual topics related to energy, proteins, fats, adolescent phase, obesity, some lifestyle diseases and infectious diseases improved significantly (P < 0·01). No significant (P > 0·05) improvement was observed in knowledge on the nutritional content of milk and sprouted grams, hypertension, HIV/AIDS, ELISA and malaria.

Topics on which our educational intervention could not bring about significant knowledge improvement have been identified and suitable modifications can be carried out to strengthen them.