A predisposing factor in the prevention of osteoporosis is the individual's belief about the disease. In spite of this importance, there is a paucity of research on young women's beliefs about osteoporosis including the effectiveness of educational programs on influencing these beliefs. Ten sections of a college physical activity course were randomized to either a short osteoporosis education intervention or control. A five-point Likert-type scale measured the strength of women's beliefs about osteoporosis at baseline, and at day 7 (post test 1) and day 21 (post test 2) following intervention. Four questions were asked: “How concerned are you about getting osteoporosis?” “How likely are you to get osteoporosis?” “How responsible do you think a person is for getting osteoporosis?” “How serious is osteoporosis?” The scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely). The intervention consisted of the National Osteoporosis Foundation's fully scripted power point presentation, “Osteoporosis: The Silent Disease” supplemented with a “Risk Factor Card: Can It Happen To You?” and an educational pamphlet “Osteoporosis: What You Need To Know.” We hypothesized that each belief variable would be favorably influenced by the intervention. ANOVA evaluated for between group differences. Alpha was set at 0.05. There were no between group differences at baseline. Thirty-nine out of 56 (69.6%) intervention women and 63 out of 77 (81.8%) control women completed all study requirements (102 out of 133, 76.6%). Ninety two percent were white and 90% ranged in age from 18 to 21 years. At baseline the women responded that they were somewhat concerned about (mean 2.75±.98), responsible for (mean 2.93±.97) and likely (mean 2.70±1.00) to develop osteoporosis. They also believed that osteoporosis is a serious disease (mean 3.97±.88). Significant differences between intervention and control were observed at post test 1 “how concerned” (mean 3.31±.89 vs. 2.87±.90; F=5.55; P=0.020) and “how serious” (mean 4.41±.59 vs. 4.03±.78; F=6.71; P=0.011) and at post test 2 “how serious” (mean 4.28±.82 vs. 3.83±.85; F=7.07; P=0.009). Forty percent of American women age 50 or older will develop osteoporosis yet we observed in young women a strength of belief about the disease that does not match what we know about its prevention (“how responsible”) or incidence (“how likely”). Although women in our study believed strongly that osteoporosis is a serious disease they expressed a high degree of complacency (“how concerned”) about it. The education program was ineffective on influencing the strength of young women's beliefs about osteoporosis.Keyword(s): disease prevention/wellness, health education college/univ, health promotion