Adolescent health

Adolescent health, or youth health, is the range of approaches to preventing, detecting or treating young people’s health and well being.[1]

The term adolescent and young people are often used interchangeably, as are the terms Adolescent Health and Youth Health. Young people's health is often complex and requires a comprehensive, biopsychosocial approach.

Adolescent health risks

Some young people engage in risky behaviours that affect their health and therefore the majority of health problems are psychosocial. Many young people experience multiple problems. These behaviours are established as a young person and go on to become the lifestyles of adults leading to chronic health problems. Social, cultural and environmental factors are all important. Young people have specific health problems and developmental needs that differ from those of children or adults: The causes of ill-health in adolescents are mostly psychosocial rather than biological. Young people often engage in health risk behaviours that reflect the processes of adolescent development: experimentation and exploration, including using drugs and alcohol, sexual behaviour, and other risk taking that affect their physical and mental health. Adolescent health also encompasses children's and young people's sexual and reproductive health (SRH).[2]

The World Health Organisation describes the leading health-related problems in the age group 10 – 19 years to include:[3]


Young people often lack awareness of the harm associated with risk behaviours, and the skills to protect themselves as well as the lack knowledge about how and where to seek help for their health concerns.[4] By intervening at this early life stage, many chronic conditions later in life can be prevented.

Key principles

Evidence-based practices include harm reduction and health promotion to intervene early in the life course and illness trajectory. Adoption of unhealthy behaviors are evident particularly during life stages involving transition such as the commencement of university where physical inactivity, sedentary activity and poor dietary habits prevail.[5] Youth health is founded on collaborative approaches that address social justice. Youth development approaches include youth empowerment and youth participation. Their aim is to promote youth rights, youth voice and youth engagement.

Access to health-care services

Studies about young people's access to healthcare have identified major barriers including concerns about confidentiality, practitioners attitudes and communication style, environment, availability of services, cost and the developmental characteristics of young people. Marginalised young people can have greater difficulty accessing health services[6] and need support to navigate the health system.[7]

The World Health Organisation 'Global standards for quality health-care services for adolescents' include: [8]

  • Adolescents’ health literacy
  • Community support
  • Appropriate package of services
  • Providers’ competencies
  • Facility characteristics
  • Equity and non-discrimination
  • Standard Data and quality improvement
  • Adolescents’ participation

Key health services for young people

Youth Health includes adolescent medicine as a speciality, along with other primary and tertiary care services. Health services for young people include mental health services, child protection, drug and alcohol services, sexual health services. General Practitioners work alongside multidisciplinary health practitioners including psychology, social Work and Youth health nursing and school health services. Youth work and youth development services support and engage young people. Web based supports, such as Reach Out!, provide early intervention.

Youth health services ('one-stop-shops' for young people) are specialist services providing multi-disciplinary, primary health care to young people. Focusing on engaging disadvantaged young people, they deliver flexible and unique services to young people in relaxed and comfortable youth-friendly environments. Youth health services work in partnership with other government and non-government services. Youth health services provide a range of entry-points and non-threatening services (such as creative arts, basic services such as showers and laundries, a drop in service, sports and recreational facilities), which encourage young people to connect with the service on their own terms. They also provide informal links to other support services and sectors including education, housing, financial support and legal services, offering support to young people who are dealing with complex issues. Youth health services understand the need to respond immediately to young people’s requests for support and assistance and they share a common operating philosophy, which values social justice, equity, and a holistic view of young people’s health and well being.

Capacity building organisations support the Youth Health sector by providing access to information and resources, conducting research and providing training.

Effects of discrimination

Social-emotional distress

Perceived discrimination has been shown to correlate with many social-emotional distresses in adolescents (Benner et al., 2018). The more an adolescent perceives they are a victim of discrimination, the more likely it is that they experience depression, anxiety, loneliness, and stress. The data was taken from 126 different studies, found in a literature search, that analyzed the relationship between perceived discrimination and social-emotional distress with effect sizes from small to moderate.[9]

Risky health behaviors

Perceived discrimination can lead to adolescents engaging in risky health behaviors. Delinquency, anger, and other externalizing behaviors are the most correlated to perceived discrimination in adolescents. Other risky health behaviors include substance abuse and risky sexual behaviors like unprotected sex and sex with multiple partners. The data was taken from 71 different studies that analyze the relationship between perceived discrimination and risky health behaviors with effect sizes from small to moderate.[9] The relationship between risky health behaviors in adolescents and discrimination can be partially explained by a greater tendency for school administrators to discipline minority students more often and more severely than other students (Mallett, 2016). This increase in discipline can lead to further delinquent and externalizing behaviors as they spend less time in the classroom environment.[10]

Academics

Perceived discrimination has also been linked to lower academic performance in adolescents. Students who feel they face discrimination are more likely to have lower grade point averages (GPA), more absences, less engagement in class, and lower academic motivation. The data was taken from 73 different studies that analyze the relationship between perceived discrimination and academic outcomes in all areas with small effect sizes.[9] The increased frequency of discipline also takes class time away from students which could contribute to their lowered academic outcomes. With less time in the classroom they do not receive the same amount of instruction that students in the classroom receive.[10]

Research

The American teen study

Reliable research in adolescent sexual behavior has been subject to political interventions in the past, particularly with funding availability, and the formal peer review process.[11] Reasons for political interventions pertaining to research in adolescent sexual behavior is rooted in conservative ideologies from political figures and activist organizations.[12][11] The groups do not want to promote sexual intercourse to adolescents and instead support funding for abstinence education.[11] However, the implications of these political interventions in adolescent sexual behavior research leads to less of an understanding in respective long-term adolescent risk-taking behavior and also disease prevention.[11]

The American Teen Study, which was set to begin in May of 1991, was one such peer reviewed research study on adolescent sexual risk-taking behavior whose funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development was shut down by former secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Louis Sullivan.[11] This cancellation eventually led to further amendments created in order to halt the National Institutes of Health from funding research in adult and adolescent sexual behavior studies because conservative political figures such as, Gary Bauer, believed there was enough literature on this subject.[13][11] However, the data meant to be collected from the American Teen Study was critical for accurately understanding the dynamics of how adolescents may come into contact with sexually transmitted infections, such as HIV, and how to further prevent adolescents from being infected.[11]

The need for data

The American Teen Study acknowledged that there is insufficient data required for assessing rates of sexually transmitted infections among adolescents, which creates a barrier for trying to prevent infection rates and also for treating infections.[11] HIV seroprevalence surveys, evaluating archived data on AIDS infections in the past, and adolescent risk-taking behaviors are the various types of data needed for accurately assessing the HIV infection trends among adolescents.[14][15][11] Seroprevalence surveys give an idea about the rates of HIV infections among various groups of people, however, using this data solely is not always externally valid as it is not completely feasible to produce accurate rates of HIV among all of the groups being measured.[11] Evaluating archived data of AIDS infections in the past is useful for obtaining an idea of how current HIV trends may be, but this data is not separated by age, which does not allow researchers to distinguish whether decreasing rates are applicable to adolescents.[11] However, by integrating both of these methods, and further incorporating data on adolescent sexual behavior, the information would be more effective with determining HIV rates among various groups of adolescents.[16][14][11] In addition, for future studies, researchers must incorporate comprehensive sample sizes, perform various research design types, understand the social norms that may influence risk-taking behaviors, and also be consistent with replicating research studies as risk-taking trends among adolescents may change.[11] Overall, this data is needed in order to understand and effectively prevent infections of sexual transmitted infections, however, political figures policing peer-reviewed research studies gets in the way of obtaining this information.[11]

Peer review process

Political interventions on peer-reviewed research may affect the integrity of the sciences, and political figures rescinding funding for certain studies they do not accept also affects the well-being of all individuals.[11] It is recommended for specialist peer reviewers to have the freedom in being able to allocate funding for certain research studies, while also allowing a justified veto of funding decisions to be made by the HHS secretary if studies are later deemed as unethical.[11] This reform is mindful that specialist peer reviewers will not be driven by personal bias, but instead by assuring that research funded is ethical, just, and neutral to the objective of the study, such as the American Teen Study.[11]

Organisations

The Egyptian Society for Adolescent Medicine The Arab Coalition for Adolescent Medicine

gollark: Enable it before install using```set potatOS.really_boring true```
gollark: PotatOS now supports "boring mode", in which all backdoors but disk loading (that's left on for updates/removals) are disabled.
gollark: <@!378840449152188419> Tagenkan *does* actually get paid the revenues from ***__TAGENKAN PREMIUM__***, right?
gollark: Are you in the lobby invisibly?
gollark: * lobbypocalypse

See also

References
  1. "WHO recommendations on maternal health: guidelines approved by the WHO Guidelines Review Committee". World Health Organization. May 2017.
  2. International technical guidance on sexuality education: An evidence-informed approach (PDF). Paris: UNESCO. 2018. p. 22. ISBN 978-92-3-100259-5.
  3. "Adolescents: health risks and solutions. Fact sheet". World Health Organization. May 2017.
  4. Chown P, Kang M, Sanci L, Newnham V, Bennett DL (2008). "Adolescent Health: Enhancing the skills of General Practitioners in caring for young people from culturally diverse backgrounds, GP Resource Kit" (PDF) (2nd ed.). NSW Centre for the Advancement of Adolescent Health and Transcultural Mental Health Centre, Sydney.
  5. Bhatti SN, Leidi A, Leake D, Li JM (July 2020). "Studying biological science does not lead to adoption of a healthy lifestyle". Perspectives in Public Health. 140 (4): 232–239. doi:10.1177/1757913919890889. PMID 31793844. S2CID 208611942.
  6. Robards F, Kang M, Usherwood T, Sanci L (April 2018). "How Marginalized Young People Access, Engage With, and Navigate Health-Care Systems in the Digital Age: Systematic Review". The Journal of Adolescent Health. 62 (4): 365–381. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2017.10.018. PMID 29429819.
  7. Robards F, Kang M, Tolley K, Hawke C, Sanci L, Usherwood T (October 2018). "Marginalised young people's healthcare journeys: Professionals' perspectives". Health Education Journal. 77 (6): 692–704. doi:10.1177/0017896917752965. S2CID 79580047.
  8. Global standards for quality health-care services for adolescents: a guide to implement a standards-driven approach to improve the quality of health care services for adolescents (PDF). Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization. 2015.
  9. Benner AD, Wang Y, Shen Y, Boyle AE, Polk R, Cheng YP (October 2018). "Racial/ethnic discrimination and well-being during adolescence: A meta-analytic review". The American Psychologist. 73 (7): 855–883. doi:10.1037/amp0000204. PMC 6172152. PMID 30024216.
  10. Mallett CA (July 2017). "The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Disproportionate Impact on Vulnerable Children and Adolescents". Education and Urban Society. 49 (6): 563–592. doi:10.1177/0013124516644053. S2CID 146846364.
  11. Gardner W, Wilcox BL (September 1993). "Political intervention in scientific peer review. Research on adolescent sexual behavior". The American Psychologist. 48 (9): 972–83. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.48.9.972. PMID 8214915.
  12. Price J (1991-07-19). "Surprised Sullivan says "Whoa" to teen sex survey". Washington Times. pp. A1, A9.
  13. Hilts PJ (1992-04-11). "U.S. Erases Section on Sex From Child-Rearing Book". The New York Times. p. B6.
  14. Gail MH, Brookmeyer R (August 1988). "Methods for projecting course of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome epidemic". Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 80 (12): 900–11. doi:10.1093/jnci/80.12.900. PMID 3294425.
  15. Vermund SH (1991). "Changing estimates of HIV-1 seroprevalence in the United States". Journal of NIH Research. 3: 77–81.
  16. Brookmeyer R, Liao JG (December 1990). "Statistical modelling of the AIDS epidemic for forecasting health care needs". Biometrics. 46 (4): 1151–63. doi:10.2307/2532455. JSTOR 2532455. PMID 2085630.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.