assessing awareness knowledge and use of folic acid in kansas women between the ages of 18 and 44 years unlabelled taking folic acid daily before and during early pregnancy has been proven to reduce neural tube birth defects ntd unfortunately many women fail to take it daily as recommendedobjectives to assess womens selfreported awareness knowledge and use of folic acid methods data were obtained by crosssectional random digitdialing computerassisted telephone interviews with 250 women in kansas associations were determined by chisquared analysisresults eightyeight percent of childbearing age women in kansas have a general awareness of folic acid 20 have knowledge that it reduces birth defects but only 25 report taking it daily awareness was associated with high school or greater education p 0001 incomes over 25000 p 00003 being married p 00035 being white p 00135 having health insurance p 00152 and being capable of pregnancy p 00119 knowledge that folic acid reduces birth defects was associated with being aware of the usphs recommendation p 0001 being capable of pregnancy p 00043 being pregnant p 00061 and being aware of folic acid p 00379 taking folic acid daily was associated with currently being pregnant p 00126conclusions women less likely to take folic acid on a daily basis were young noncaucasians who reported less education less income and no health insurance based upon these data multilevel education campaigns that specifically target lowerses women should be considered