Objective To explore the effect of teaching reform guided by the concepts of science,technology and society (STS) in the teaching of child and adolescent health course in higher vocational college.Methods A total of 75 three-year students majoring in medical nutrition,public health management and health management of grade 2016 in Jiangsu Health Vocational College were selected as the research subjects.Guided by the STS concept,teaching content,teaching methods and assessment method were all reformed,and a self-designed questionnaire was used to evaluate the teaching effect after the course.Results After the reform,the number of practice courses,teaching forms and the types of assessment methods increased.Compared with classic theoretical teaching,students preferred examples,video,internship (growth measurement,growth evaluation,evaluation of learning fatigue),and “self-study +showing” teaching methods (Z values were -2.41,-2.73,-2.09,-1.99,-2.31,-1.99,all P<0.05).86.7% (65/75) of the students thought that the teaching method of “self-study + showing” can make students more involved in it,and 84.0% (63/75) of the students thought that the teaching method of “self-study + showing” can make students more active in learning.The theoretical test scores of students who participated in reform(83.46±5.38)were higher than the scores of those who did not participate in (72.80±5.67),and the difference was statistically significant (t=-8.18,P<0.05).Conclusions The reform of STS concept in the child and adolescent health course in higher vocational college has aroused the enthusiasm of students and improved the learning outcome.